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THE LAST WORDS OF 
THOMAS' CARLYLE 



WOTTON REINFRED : A ROMANCE 
EXCURSION (FUTILE ENOUGH) TO PARIS 
LETTERS /Qff^ )i 







NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1892 



iM^-^tHhe X 






Copyright, 1892, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



Electrotyped and Printed 

AT THE ApPLETON PrESS, U. S. A. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The two manuscripts included in The 
Last Words of Thomas Carlyle were left among 
the author's papers at his death. One of 
them, Wot ton Reinfred, is Carlyle 's only essay 
in fiction, and it therefore possesses so dis- 
tinctive an interest that its omission from 
Carlyle's complete works would not be justi- 
fiable. The other, Excursion {Futile Ejzough) 
to Paris, offers a vivid picture of Carlyle's 
personality. By the publication of these two 
manuscripts, with the accompanying letters, a 
new and considerable volume is added to the 
list of Carlyle's works. 

Wotton Reinfred was probably written soon 
after Carlyle's marriage, at the time when he 
and his wife entertained the idea of produc- 
ing a novel in collaboration. The romance 



iv INTRODUCTION. 

may be said to possess a peculiar psychologi- 
cal interest, inasmuch as it represents the 
earlier peHod of Carlyle's literary develop- 
ment. In the labored but not faulty style, 
the most familiar characteristics of the writ- 
er's later work are only occasionally apparent. 
So far as matter is concerned, the reader will 
not be slow to discover, in the conversations 
of Wotton and the Doctor, the first expres- 
sion of ideas and doctrines afterward set 
forth with more formality in Sartor Resartus. 
" It is a poor philosophy which can be taught 
in words," is the Doctor's proposition. " We 
talk and talk, and talking without acting, 
though Socrates were the speaker, does not 
help our case, but aggravates it. Thou must 
act, thou must work, thou must do ! Collect 
thyself, compose thyself, find what is wanting 
that so tortures thee, do but attempt with all 
thy strength to attain it, and thou art saved." 
Here is the doctrine afterward expanded by 
Teufelsdrockh in Sartor Resartus. 

Concerning Carlyle's judgment of his con- 
temporaries, he has often enlightened us with 



INTRODUCTION. y 

his wonted frankness, but in Wottott Reinfred 
alone he appears as the writer of a romance 
whose characters are drawn from real life. 
On this point we may quote Mr. James An- 
thony Froude, who says : 

. " The interest of Wotton Reinfred to me is 
considerable from the sketches which it con- 
tains of particular men and women, most of 
whom I knew and could, if necessary, identify. 
The story, too, is taken generally from real 
life, and perhaps Carlyle did not finish it from 
the sense that it could not be published while 
the persons and things could be recognized. 
That objection to the publication no longer 
exists. Everybody is dead whose likenesses 
have been drawn, and the incidents stated 
have long been forgotten." 

Mr. Leslie Stephen adds to this testimony 
in a letter from which we make the following 
extract : 

" It is interesting as a historical document. 
It gives Carlyle before he had adopted his 
peculiar manner, and yet there are some char- 
acteristic bits — especially at the beginning — in 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

the Sartor Resartus vein. I take it that these 
are reminiscences of Irving and of the Thack- 
eray circle, and there is a curious portrait of 
Coleridge, not very thinly veiled. There is 
enough autobiography, too, of interest in its 
way." 

The Excursion (Futile Enough) to Paris is 
the unreserved daily record of a journey in 
company with the Brownings, when Carlyle 
paid a visit to Lord Ashburton. That this 
record is characteristic, and that it presents a 
singularly vivid picture of the writer's per- 
sonality, is self-evident. It is a picture Avhich 
adds something to our knowledge of Carlyle 
the man, and is therefore worth preservation. 
The world has long since known that even 
Carlyle's heroic figure may claim the sympa- 
thy and pity due a great soul fretting against 
its material environments. 



WOTTON REINFRED. 



CHAPTER I. 

" Surely," said Wotton, as he sat by the 
clear evening fire engaged in various talk 
with his friend, " surely, my good Doctor, the 
poet is wrong ; and happiness if it be the aim 
was never meant to be the end of our being." 
The old Doctor gave a quiet smile. "Hap- 
piness ! " continued Wotton with increasing 
vehemence, " happiness ! where is it ? The 
foolish can not find it, the wisest have sought 
for it in vain. Not on the towering heights 
of royalty, not in the houses of the rich and 
noble, not down in the thatched hut of the 
peasant does it dwell. The ambitious, be it 
in the cabinet, the battle-field, or the counting- 
room, discovers after a thousand mocking dis- 
appointments that he is a hapless drudge ; the 
voluptuary dies despicable and wretched, like 

Copyright, 1892, by D. Appleton and Company. 



2 WOT TON REINFRED 

a putrid gourd ; Brutus exclaims, ' O virtue, 
I have worshipped thee as a substance, and 
must I find thee a shadow ? ' But Science ! 
Yes, Science ! And what does Science teach 
us? The wisdom of living? The nature of 
our own being, and the art of directing it 
aright? Alas ! alas ! on these things she speaks 
not but in enigmas ; for darkness and the 
shadow of doubt rest over the path of our 
pilgrimage, and at our journey's end the 
wisest of us can but exclaim with the old 
sage : Foede munditm intravi, miser vixi, pertur- 
batus niorior ! " 

** Do not forget his prayer," said the 
other, meekly. 

"Yes! O causa causariim^ miserere mei!'" 
cried Reinfred, looking upwards, with tears 
almost starting to his e3^es. '' Miserere mei T' 
repeated he, throwing himself down on the 
table, and hiding his face in his hands. 

His cousin looked at him sympathisingly, 
but spoke not, 

*' And yet," cried the other, starting up, 
and throwing back his head to conceal the 



WOT TON REIN FRED, 3 

wetness of his eyes, " if He DO not hear me ? 
If there is no ear to hear me ; and the voice 
of my sorrow peals unreturned through the 
grim wilderness, and only the echo of the 
dead rocks replies to me in the gloom ! O 
heaven and earth, what am I or where am I ? 
Alone ! Alone ! They are dead, all dead, 
buried beneath the ground or faithless above 
it, and for me there is no soul that careth ! 
Forgive me, my father," continued he, after a 
moment's pause ; " I do you wrong, but I am 
very v/eak ; and surely these things will kill 
me soon." 

" Dear boy," said his friend, " you are not 
to blame, you take the matter like a young 
man as you are ; because hope has hid herself 
you think she is utterly fled. Tush, I tell you, 
all this is nonsense, and you will see it yet 
though you think my words but wind. You 
were twenty-two last Christmas, and the life 
of man is three score years and ten. You 
have much to do, and much to learn in this 
world ; only nature must have her coarse, 
nay, she is teaching you even now, teaching 



4 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

you with hard but useful stripes, and you will 
act your part the better and more wisely for 
it." 

*' It is acted already," said the other, bit- 
terly, " and the curtain is dropped, and I have 
nothing more to do but undress, but shuffle 
off this mortal coil." 

"Dropped? Aye, but not the green one, 
it is the painted curtain that has dropped, and 
the first act truly is done, and we have other 
four to come to. Pity that our interlude of 
music were not gayer, but we must even put 
up with it, sighs and groans though it be. O, 
Wotton Reinfred, thou art beside thyself ; 
much learning doth make thee mad. I swear 
it is even so," continued he, rising into his 
usual lively tone. " There hast thou sat por- 
ing over thy Geometries and Stereometries, 
thy Fluxions direct and inverse, by the New- 
tonian and the Leibnitzian method, thy Uni- 
versal History, thy Scotch Philosophy and 
French Poetics, till thy eyes are dazed with so 
many lamps, and for very light thou canst not 
see a glimpse, and so in thy head the world is 



WOT TON REIN FRED, 5 

whirling like a sick man's dream, and for thee 
it has neither top nor bottom, beginning, mid- 
dle, nor end ! I care not for thy scepticism, 
Wotton : I tell thee, it will grow to be belief, 
and all the sounder for thy once having 
doubted. I say so because thy froward mind 
is honest withal, and thou lovest truth sin- 
cerely. But deuce take it, man ! I would 
have had thee pleading in the courts like a 
brave advocate — " 

" Illustrating the case of Stradling versus 
Styles," cried Reinfred, hastily, for the talk 
displeased him. *' Spending my immortal 
spirit, in vain jangling, for a piece of bread ? 
I have bread already." 

*' So much the better ! But the honour, the 
use to others — " 

*' May be strongly doubted," cried the 
youth, still more sharply. 

" Well, I grant it would not do," said the 
Doctor, hastening to quit this rather thorny 
province. ^'Thou hadst a heart too, but we 
could not master it ; six months of the Institute 
had no whit abated thy aversion, nay, thy hor- 



6 WOT TON REINFRED. 

ror ; and at last, when I saw thee after a reso- 
lute night as Justice of the Peace absolutely 
seized with a kind of tetanus or locked-Jaw, I 
myself was obliged to vote that we should 
give it up." — " Heigho ! " ejaculated Wotton. 
*' But now, in Heaven's name," continued the 
Doctor, " what is it that should so overcloud 
thee, nay for ever benight thee notwithstand- 
ing? Are we not here in thy own walled 
house, amid thy own freehold fields? Hast 
thou no talent that this world has use for? 
Young, healthy ; a proper fellow of thy inches ; 
learned too, though I say it, for thy years ; 
and independent, if not rich ! Pshaw ! Is thy 
game lost because the first trick has gone 
against thee ? Patience, and shuffle the cards ! 
Is the world all dead because Edmund Walter 
is a scoundrel jackanapes, and — " 

** Good God ! " cried Wotton, starting from 
his seat, and pacing hurriedly over the floor, 
" can you not spare me ? What have I to do 
with Edmund Walter? The tiger-ape ! " cried 
he, stamping on the ground, " with his body 
and shoulder knots, his smirks and fleers ! A 



WOT TON REIN FRED. y 

gilt outside, and within a very lazar-house! 
Gayspeeches, a most frolick sunny thing ; and 
in its heart the poison of asps ! O the — But 
I will not curse him. No, poor devil ! He 
but follows the current of his own vile nature, 
like the rest of us. God help him — and me ! " 
added he, pausing, with a deep sigh. 

" Yet it is strange," said the other, " how 
this puppy could muster rhetoric for such a 
thing. Strange that for a cap and feather Jane 
Montagu should have — " 

" Doctor ! " said Wotton, turning towards 
him abruptly, with a look striving to be calm. 
*' I shall request of you never to mention that 
name in my hearing again." 

" Pooh, think not of her, or think of her as 
she merits. A selfish minx after all ; brighter 
talents, but no sounder judgment, or truer heart 
than the rest of them ; a worthless — " 

** O do not blame her ! Who knows how 
much or how little she was to blame? The 
thraldom of her situation, her youth, that cold 
cozening cruel woman ; all things were against 
us. No, worthless she was not; and if her 



8 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

heart was false, it was doubly and trebly false, 
for she knew the light and yet chose darkness 
rather than light. But could she love that 
caitiff ? She must have loved him ! O there 
is a dark baleful mystery over it which I 
shall never pierce through. Would she were 
gone from my thoughts, gone as if she had not 
been ; for here the remembrance of her is but 
a curse. Was it not hard? One only hope, 
and that to mock me with the Fiend's arch 
scoff! The world was dead around me, the 
last heart that loved me in the cold grave ; all 
efforts baffled, one by one the green places of 
my universe scathed and blackened into ashes ; 
my whole life one error, a seeking of light and 
goodness and a finding of darkness and de- 
spair. I was to myself as a frightful mistake ; 
a spectre in the middle of breathing men, an 
unearthly presence, that ought not to be there. 
And she — O fair and golden as the dawn she 
rose upon my soul. Night with its ghastly 
fantasms fled away ; and beautiful and solemn 
in earnest shade and gay sunshine lay our life 
before me. And then, and then ! O God, a 



WOT TON REINFRED, g 

gleam of hell passed over the face of my an- 
gel, and the pageant was rolled together like a 
scroll, and thickest darkness fell over me, and 
I heard the laughter of a demon ! But what 
of it?" cried he, suddenly checking himself. 
" It was a vision, a brief calenture, a thing that 
belonged not to this earth." 

He stood gazing out upon the starry night. 
The old man approached, but knew not what 
to say. " Do they not look down on us as if 
with pity from their serene spaces," said Rein- 
fred, " like eyes glistening with heavenly tears 
over the poor perplexities of man ? ' Herr- 
liche Gefiihle esttarren in,' etc. Their bright- 
ness is not bedimmed by any vapour, the 
mists of our troubled planet do not reach 
them. Thousands of human generations all 
as noisy as our own have been engulphed in 
the abyss of time, and there is no wreck of 
them seen any more ; and Arcturus and Orion 
and the Pleiades are still shining in their 
courses, clear and young as when the shep- 
herd first noted them on the plain of Shinar. 
O what is life, or why should we sorrow or joy 



lO WOT TON REINFRED. 

over it when it is but for a moment? What 
is all the earth and all that have inherited 
or shall inherit it? Blot it out utterly and 
it is not missed from the Creation. Blot 
me out, and shall I be missed ? Shame on 
me, foolish child, to whine for such a 
toy!" 

" Truth, virtue, beauty, are in man," said 
the other ; " they are older than the stars, and 
will live when these too have returned to the 
void night whence they were called forth in 
the beginning. O Wotton, my son, thou wilt 
know and feel this at last, though now thou 
know it not; and affliction will be precious 
which teaches thee such knowledge." Wot- 
ton shook his head. " But I am wrong," con- 
tinued he. " Why do I lead thee to such 
thoughts ? It is a poor philosophy which can 
be taught in words : we talk and talk ; and 
talking without acting, though Socrates were 
the speaker, does not help our case but aggra- 
vate it. Thou must act, thou must work, thou 
must do! Collect thyself, compose thyself, find 
what is wanting that so tortures thee ; do but 



WOT TON REINFRED, II 

attempt with all thy strength to attain it and 
thou art saved." 

" Wanting ? " said Wotton. " Wanting ? 
There is nothing wanting but deepest sleep, 
where there were no dreams to trouble me. 
Ere long I shall find it in my mother's bosom. 
But what of this?" added he, impatiently. 
" Why do we talk, as thou sayest, when there 
is nothing to be done ? O, my old friend, I 
abuse your goodness, and load you with griefs 
which I should bear myself. Forgive me, for- 
give me. I was not always weak. It must 
alter, for the better or the worse it must." 

" For the better ! " cried the Doctor, cheer- 
ily. " It must and will. I tell thee help is on 
the road : it will arrive when we least think of 
it. But enough ! Now tell me, to come to 
business at last, what sayest thou to Mosely's 
letter?" 

** That travelling will not recreate me ; that 
I want no spiritual leech, for spiritual recipes 
cannot avail ; that Mosely is a good man, but 
knows nothing of my * case ' as he calls it ; in 
brief, that I cannot and must not go." 



12 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

" Dost thou know I came hither solely to 
persuade thee ; to offer myself as thy compan- 
ion? " 

*< My good, kind, only friend ! But why 
should it be? Why should I intrude upon 
happy men : to sit in their circle like a death's- 
head, marring- all pleasure by my sepulchral 
moods ? Leave me to fight with my own des- 
picable fate. Here in the mountains I con- 
sume my griefs in silence, and except when 
you in your chivalrous benevolence come 
over to doctor me, I trouble no one with 
them." 

" Be my patient then for once," cried the 
other: "what harm can it do? Your books 
have ceased to please you, and you are learn- 
ing nothing from them but to doubt. Your 
long rides among the moors do but feed your 
melancholy humour. You can neither shoot, 
nor hunt, nor dine. You keep no race-horses, 
and the Commission of Supply does not fire 
your ambition. What have you to do here ? 
Arise, let us mingle in the full current of life, 
or at least survey it for a season. Who knows 



WOT TON REINFRED. 1 3 

what fine things we may see and do ? Frank 
Mosely is a true man, and you will learn to 
love him ; he already loves you. Your case, 
too, he understands better than you think. 
Let me read you this," cried he^ taking- out a 
letter and leading Wotton back to the table, 

" O, I know it already ! The old story 
over again, be not solitary, be not idle. And 
good heaven ! what am I that people should 
quacksalver me with their nostrums? Does 
Mosely keep a private bedlam for afflicted 
scholars? Or would he dissect me and ex- 
periment upon me?" 

" Patience ! patience ! " said the other; '* he 
is a good man, and my friend. Do but lis- 
ten." He read as follows : 

"... TeKo^ 0, etc. The end of man is an ac- 
tion, not a thought^ says Aristotle ; the wisest 
thing he ever said. Doubt is natural to a 
human being, for his conceptions are infinite, 
his powers are only finite. Nevertheless it 
must be removed, and this not by negation 
but by affirmation. From experience springs 
belief, from speculation doubt, but idleness is 



14 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

the mother of unbelief. Neither is our happi- 
ness passive, but only active ; few men know 
this, though all in words admit it, hence their 
life is a perpetual seeking without finding. 

'' Bring thy friend Reinfred hither ; I have 
long known him, though he knows not me. 
So fair a nature will not perish in its own su- 
perfluity, be its circumstances for the present 
never so perplexed. His state is painful, but 
in the end it yields peaceable fruits. It must 
at some time be the state of all men who are 
destined to be men. Bring him hither, that 
he may see what he has yet but heard of. 
Time will indeed be his physician, be it there 
or here : but I would gladly do myself a pleas- 
ure in knowing him. Happy and unhappy two- 
legged animals about me are many, but hap- 
py or even unhappy men are very few. . . ." 

The discussion of this matter between our 
friends was protracted to a late hour ; Wotton 
urging his own misanthropic habitudes, his 
hatred of change, his inacquaintance with 
Mosely, and the folly and hopelessness of the 
whole project; his cousin answering all his 



WOT TON REINFRED. 1 5 

cold noes with as many warm yeas, and plead- 
ing at last that in this whim of his, if he had 
ever merited ought, he might for this once be 
gratified. " It is a thing I have set my heart 
on," said he ; " and I shall be positively un- 
happy if thou deny me." Reinfred loved his 
cousin ; esteemed him as a man of unintelligi- 
ble or mistaken views indeed, but of the kind- 
est heart, whose helpful sympathy he had 
often taken in the hour of need; and who now, 
sad, lonely, down-pressed and darkened as the 
young man seemed, might almost be said to 
form the last link that still in any wise con- 
nected him with the living and loving world. 
After long resistance he began to yield, and 
before parting for the night a faint assent was 
wrung from him. " Why many words?" said 
he, " if it really can do anything for thee, mis- 
taken as thou art ; against me it can do noth- 
ing." 

Next morning the cousin took his leave 
and rode home to make arrangements for the 
journey, as the third day was fixed upon for 
their departure. 



CHAPTER II. 

Reluctantly as Wotton had consented 
to this scheme, the good effects of it were 
already beginning to be felt. The prepara- 
tions and preliminary settlements produced a 
wholesome diversion of his thoughts, so many 
little outward cares constraining him to calcu- 
lation and exertion, the unusual bustle of 
his still house, all contributed to draw him 
from the dark Trophonius' cave of his own 
imagination into the light and warmth of 
day. 

As he rode along through the bright morn- 
ing to his lawyer, that he might finish, after 
long loitering, some acts of business relating 
to his little property, and some acts of benefi- 
cence to one or two poor peasants dependent 
on him, he almost felt as if he were in very 
deed ceasing to be an alien from the common- 



WOT TON REINFRED. 17 

wealth of men, as if he too had some duties to 
perform in his own sphere, barren and hum- 
ble though it was. The journey itself, though 
he viewed it with little pleasure, nay in gen- 
eral with a sort of captious regret, was yet a 
prospect if not a hope, and thus the future, if 
not filled with inviting forms, was no longer 
absolutely void. Nay in spite of himself some 
promise of enjoyment rose faintly over his 
mind ; for the plastic vigour of young fancies 
which shapes such landscapes in the clouds, 
though sorely marred in him was not extinct, 
and where good and evil are both possible, 
there is no such perverse alchemy as will ex- 
clusively select the latter. He could not deny 
that he felt some curiosity to know Mosely 
and his circle, so enigmatic as it seemed, from 
all that he had learned ; it may be even that 
unconsciously some low whisper of his lost 
Jane Montagu mingled in his fantasies, some 
unavowed hope of again being cast into her 
neighbourhood, of seeing and hearing her 
once more, and though not of recovering her 
affection, for that he could not even wish, at 



1 8 WOT TON REINFRED. 

least of understanding how it had been for 
ever lost. 

Wotton was one of those natures which it 
is of most importance to educate rightly, but 
also of greatest difficulty, and which accord- 
ingly with a capricious contradiction we often 
find worse educated than any other. In early 
boyhood he had lost his father, a man of an 
equal but stern and indignant temper, soured 
also by disappointments and treacheries, which 
had driven him at middle age from the com- 
merce of the world, to hide his shattered for- 
tunes, his great talents, and too fiery but hon- 
est and resolute spirit, in the solitude of his 
little rustic patrimony. Here in this barren 
seclusion he had lived, repelling from him by 
a certain calm but iron cynicism all advances 
either of courtesy or provocation, an isolated 
man, busied only with the culture of his land, 
amused only by studies of philosophy and 
literature, which no one but himself under- 
stood or valued. To neighbours he was an 
object of spleen, of aversion ; yet on the 
whole of envy rather than of pity, for he 



WOT TON REIN FRED. jg 

seemed complete in himself, free of all men, 
fearless of all men, a very king in his own 
domain. Even happy he might appear, but 
it was not so, for the worm of pride was still 
gnawing at his heart, and his philosophy pre- 
tended not to root it out but only to con- 
ceal it. 

In a few years his deep-shrouded chagrin 
undermined his health, a slight sickness gath- 
ered unexpected aggravation, and he sank 
darkly into the grave with all his ineffectual 
nobleness, wayward and wilful in himself, 
mistaken by the world, and broken by it 
though he could not be bent. Of this parent 
Wotton recollected nothing, save his strong, 
earnest, silent figure, and a vague unpleasant 
impression from him of restraint and awe. 

The mother, to whose sole guidance he 
was now committed, had a mother's love for 
her boy, and was in all respects a true-minded 
woman ; but for such a spirit as Wotton's no 
complete though in some points a most pre- 
cious instructress. She trained his heart to 
the love of all truth and virtue ; but of his 



20 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

Other faculties she took little heed, and could 
take little proper charge. To this good be- 
ing, intellect, or even activity, except when 
directed to the purely useful, was no all-im- 
portant matter ; for- her soul was full of lofti- 
est religion, and truly regarded the glories of 
this earth as light chaff ; nay, we may say she 
daily and almost hourly felt as if the whole 
material world were but a vision and a show, 
a shadowy bark bound together only by the 
Almighty's word, and transporting us as if 
through a sea of dreams to the solemn shore 
of Eternity, in whose unutterable light the 
bark would melt like vapour, and we our- 
selves awake to endless weal or woe. 

In her secluded life, for like her husband 
she was visited by few except the needy and 
distressed, such feelings gathered strength ; 
were reduced to principles of action, and 
came at last to pervade her whole conduct, 
most of all her conduct to her sole surviving 
child. She never said to him : " Be great, be 
learned, be rich ; " but, " Be good and holy, 
seek God and thou shalt find Him." " What 



WOT TON REINFRED. 21 

is wealth ? " she would say ; " What are 
crowns and sceptres ? The fashion of them 
passeth away. Heed not the world, thou hast 
a better inheritance ; fear it not, sufficient 
food and raiment our Father will provide 
thee ; has he not clothed the sparrow against 
winter, and given it a fenced house to dwell 
in ? " She wished to have her boy instructed 
in learning, for though little acquainted with 
it herself, she reverenced it deeply ; but judg- 
ing his religious and moral habitudes of far 
more consequence, she would not part with 
him from her sight, still less trust him among 
the contaminations of a boarding-school. 

To read and write she had herself taught 
him ; the former talent he had acquired so 
early that it seemed less an art than a faculty, 
for he could not recollect his ever having 
wanted it or learned it. So soon as his 
strength appeared sufficient, she had sent him 
to a day-school in the nearest town, a distance 
of six miles, which, with his satchel at his 
back, the ruddy urchin used to canter over on 
his little shelty evening and morning. His 



22 WOT TON REINFRED. 

progress was the boast of the teachers; and 
the timid still boy, devoted to his tasks and 
rarely mingling in the pastimes, never in the 
riots of his fellows, would have been a uni- 
versal favourite in any community less selfish 
and tyrannical than one composed of school- 
boys. It may seem strange to say so ; but 
among these little men, a curious observer 
will detect some almost frightful manifesta- 
tions of our common evil nature. What cru- 
elty in their treatm^ent of inferiors, whether 
frogs, vagrant beggars, or weaker boys ! How 
utterly the hearts of the little wretches seem 
dead to all voice of mercy or justice. It is 
the rude, savage, natural man, unchecked by 
any principle of reflection or even calculation, 
and obeying, like animals, no precept but that 
of brute giant power. 

Poor Wotton had a sorry time of it in this 
tumultuous, cozening, brawling, club-law com- 
monwealth : he had not friends among them, 
or if any elder boy took his part, feeling some 
touch of pity for his innocence and worth, it 
was only for a moment, and his usual purga- 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 23 

tory, perhaps aggravated b}^ his late patron, 
returned upon him with but greater bitter- 
ness. They flouted him, they beat him, they 
jeered and tweaked and tortured him by a 
thousand cunning arts, to all which he could 
only answer with his tears ; so that his very 
heart was black within him, and in his sad- 
ness, of which he would not complain, and 
which also seemed to him as if eternal, he 
knew not what to do. For he was a quiet, 
pensive creature, that loved all things, his 
shelty, the milk-cow, nay the very cat, un- 
grateful termageant though she was ; and so 
shy and soft withal, that he generally passed 
for cowardly, and his tormentors had named 
him " weeping Wotton," and marked him 
down as a proper enough bookworm, but one 
without a particle of spirit. However, in this 
latter point they sometimes overshot them- 
selves, and the boldest and tallest of the house 
have quailed before the " weeping Wotton," 
when thoroughly provoked, for his fury while 
it lasted was boundless, his little face gleamed 
like a thunderbolt, and no fear of earthly or 



24 V/OTTON RE IN FRED. 

unearthly thing could hold him from the heart 
of his enemy. 

But the sway of this fire-eyed genius was 
transient as the spark of the flint; his com- 
rades soon learned the limits of danger, and 
adjusting their operations with a curious ac- 
curacy to the properties of their material, con- 
tinued to harass him, more cunningly, but not 
less effectually than before. 

All these things acted on Wotton with 
deep and mostly unfavourable influences ; fret- 
ting into morbid quickness his already exces- 
sive sensibility, and increasing the develop- 
ment of his shy secluded nature. His mother 
and her calm circle, the sole spot in the earth 
where he could have peace, became doubly 
dear to him ; and he knew no joy till, mount- 
ing his pony, and leaving the pavement of the 
burgh behind him, he could resign himself 
among shady alleys and green fields to a 
thousand dreams, which fancy was already 
building for him in clouds of all gayest hues. 
In the future he was by turns a hero and a 
sage, in both provinces the benefactor and 



WOT TON REIN FRED, 25 

wonder of the world ; and would weave a his- 
tory for himself, of dainty texture, resuming it 
day after day, and sometimes continuing it for 
months and years. The bleak, monotonous 
past itself was beautified in his thoughts ; its 
sorrows were like steep rocks, no longer sharp 
and stern, rising in the distance amid green 
sunny fields of joy. All forms of his earlier 
years rose meeker and kinder in his memory ; 
especially the figure of a little elder sister, 
with whom he had played in trustful gladness 
in infancy, but whom death had snatched 
away from him before he knew what the King 
of Terrors was. Since the departure of this 
little one, the green knolls, the dells of his na- 
tive brook had been lonelier to him ; indeed, 
he was almost without companion of his own 
age, but his mother's bosom was still open to 
him, and from her he had yet no care which it 
concerned him to hide. 

In the evenings, above all on holidays, he 
was happy, for then the afflictions of life all 
lay on the other side of the hill ; he wandered 
over the fields in a thousand gay reveries ; he 



26 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

made crossbows and other implements with 
his knife, or stood by the peasants at their 
work and listened eagerly to their words, 
which, rude as they might be, were the words 
of grown men, and awoke in him forecastings 
of a distant world. Old Stephen in particu- 
lar, the family gardener, steward, ploughman, 
majordomo and factotum, he could have 
hearkened to for ever. Stephen had travelled 
much in his time, and seen the manner of 
many men ; noting noteworthy things, which 
his shrewd mind wanted not skill to combine in 
its own simplicity into a consistent philosophy 
of life. From Stephen also he had half bor- 
rowed, half plundered, certain volumes of 
plays and tales, among these the ever-m.emora- 
ble " Arabian Nights," which, not so much 
read as devoured, formed, with the theologi- 
cal library of his mother, a strange enough 
combination. These fictions Wotton almost 
feared were little better than falsehoods, the 
reading of which his conscience did all but 
openly condemn, for he believed, as he had 
been taught, that beyond the region of material 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 27 

usefulness religion was the only study profit- 
able to man. Nor was he behindhand in this 
latter, at least, if entire zeal could suffice. 
Ever in his great Taskmaster's eye, he watched 
over his words and actions with even an over- 
scrupulousness. His little prayer came even- 
ing and morning from a full heart, and life, in 
the thought of the innocent boy, seemed little 
else than a pilgrimage through a sacred alley, 
with the pinnacles of the Eternal Temple at 
its close. 

With increase of years came new feelings, 
still farther complicated by change of scene. 
In his fifteenth winter he was sent to college ; 
a measure to which his mother had consented 
by the advice of her ancient pastor, and the 
still more earnest persuasion of Wotton's 
teacher, and to the fulfilment of which the boy 
himself had long looked forward with un- 
speakable anticipations. The seminary was in 
a large town at a distance of many miles ; to 
Wotton, a pure ''city of the mind," glorious 
as the habitation of wisdom, and cloud-capt 
in his fancy with all earthly splendour. 



28 WOTTON REINFRED. 

This new scene might have worked upon 
him beneficially, but for the present it did not. 
It was a university in which the great prin- 
ciple of spiritual liberty was admitted in its 
broadest sense, and nature was left to all not 
only without misguidance, but without any 
guidance at all. Wotton's tasks were easy of 
performance, or, rather, the performance of 
them was recommended not enforced ; while 
for the rest he was left to choose his own so- 
ciety and form his own habits, and had un- 
limited command of reading. What a wild 
world rose before him as he read, and felt, 
and saw, with as yet unworn avidity ! Young 
Nature was combining with this strange edu- 
cation to unfold the universe to him in its 
most chaotic aspect. What with history and 
fiction, what with philosophy and feeling, it 
was a wondrous Nowhere that his spirit dwelt 
in : all stood before him in indistinct detached 
gigantic masses ; a country of desire and ter- 
ror ; baseless, boundless ; overspread with 
dusky or black shadows, yet glowing here and 
there in maddening light. To all this, more- 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. 29 

over, the exasperating- influence of solitude 
was superadded ; in fact, Wotton's manner of 
existence was little less secluded than ever; 
for though the persecutions of his school-fel- 
lows had gradually died away as he grew 
more able to resist them, his originally back- 
ward temper had nowise been improved by 
such treatment. Indeed, a keen and painful 
feeling of his own weakness, added to a cer- 
tain gloomy consciousness of his real intrinsic 
superiority, rendered him at once suspicious 
and contemptuous of others. 

Besides, in the conversation of his equals 
he truly felt little sympathy ; their specula- 
tions were of far more earthly matters than 
his ; and in their amusements, too often riot- 
ous and libertine, his principle forbade him to 
participate. Only with the little knot of his 
countrymen, in the narrowest sense of that 
word, did he stand in any sort of relation ; 
and even of these he often felt as if their inter- 
course were injuring him and should be aban- 
doned, as if their impure influences were con- 
taminating and seducing him. Contaminate 



30 wo r TON RE IN FRED. 

him they did, but seduce him they could not. 
Polished steel may be breathed on without 
being rusted, but not long or often without 
being bedimmed. Wotton fought hard with 
evil ; for fiercely were the depths of his fiery 
nature assailed ; he was not conquered, yet 
neither did he conquer, without loss, and 
these contests added new uproar to the dis- 
cord within. 

Of his progress in the learned languages 
he himself made little account ; nor in meta- 
physics did he find any light, but, rather, 
doubt or darkness ; if he talked of the mat- 
ter it was in words of art, and his own honest 
nature whispered to him the while that they 
were only words. Mathematics and the kin- 
dred sciences, at once occupying and satisfy- 
ing his logical faculty, took much deeper hold 
of him ; nay, by degrees, as he felt his own in- 
dependent progress, almost alienated him for 
a long season from all other studies. " Is not 
truth," said he, ** the pearl of great price, and 
where shall we find it but here ? " He gloried 
to track the footsteps of the mighty Newton, 



WOT TON REINFRED, 31 

and in the thought that he could say to him- 
self : Thou, even thou, art privileged to look 
from his high eminence, and to behold with 
thy own eyes the order of that stupendous 
fabric ; thou seest it in light and mystic har- 
mony, which, though all living men denied, 
thou wouldst not even doubt! A proud 
thought, truly, for little man ; but a sad one 
if he pursue it unwisely ! 

The Principia do but enlighten one small 
forecourt of the mind ; and for the inner 
shrine, if we seek not purer light and by purer 
means, it will remain for ever dark and deso- 
late. So Wotton found to his cost ; for v/ith 
this cold knowledge, much as he boasted of it, 
he felt in secret that his spiritual nature was 
not fed. In time, like other men, he came to 
need a theory of man ; a system of metaphys- 
ics, not for talk, but for adoption and belief ; 
and here his mathematical logic afforded little 
help, as, indeed, without other rarer concomi- 
tants, it is in such pursuits a hindrance rather 
than a help. Great questions, the very great- 
est, came before his mind ; with shuddering 



32 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

awe he drew aside the veil from all sacred 
things ; but here, in what he called the light 
of his reason, which was only a fitful glimmer, 
there was no clear vision for him. Doubt 
only, pale doubt, rising like a spectral shadow, 
was to be seen, distorting or obscuring the 
good and holy ; nay, sometimes hiding the 
very Holy of Holies from his eye. 

Who knows not the agonies of doubt? 
What heart, not of stone, can endure to abide 
with them ? Wotton's was a heart of flesh, 
and of the softest ; it was torn and bleeding, 
yet he could not pause ; for a voice from the 
depths of his nature called to him, as he loved 
truth, to persevere. He studied the sceptical 
writers of his own country ; above all, the 
modern literature of France. Here at length 
a light rose upon him, not the pure sunlight of 
former da3^s, but a red fierce glare, as by de- 
grees his doubt settled in utter negation. He 
felt a mad pleasure mingled with his pangs, 
and unbelief was laying waste in scornful tri- 
umph so many fairest things, still dear and ven- 
erable even as delusions. Alas ! the joy of the 



WOTTON REIN FRED, 33 

Denyer is not of long continuance. He burns 
the city, and warms himself at the blaze for a 
day ; but on the morrow the fair palaces as 
well as the noisome alleys are gone, and he 
stands houseless amid ashes and void silence. 
Thus also it fared with Reinfred. 

The philosophy of Epicurus was not made 
for him ; his understanding was convinced, 
but his heart in secret denied it. Vice and 
all baseness, which at first it might have 
seemed to sanction, he still rejected, nay, ab- 
horred. But what, then, was virtue ? Another 
name for happiness, for pleasure ? No longer 
the eternal life and beauty of the universe, the 
invisible all-pervading effluence of God ; but a 
poor earthly theorem, a balance of profit and 
loss resting on self-interest, and pretending to 
rest on nothing higher. 

Nay, was the virtuous always happiest? 
To Wotton it seemed more than dubious ; for 
himself, at least, he felt as if truth were too 
painful, and animal stupidity the surest fount- 
ain of contentment. By degrees a dreary stag- 
nancy overspread his soul : he was without fear 



34 WOTTON REINFRED. 

and without hope ; in this world isolated, poor, 
and helpless ; had tasted little satisfaction, and 
expected little, and in the next he had now no 
part or lot. Among his fellow-men he felt 
like a stranger and a pilgrim, a pilgrim jour- 
neying without rest to a distant nowhere. 
Pride alone supported him, a deep-hid satanic 
pride ; and it was a harsh and stern support. 
Gloomy mockery was in his once kind and 
gentle heart; mockery of the world, of him- 
self, of all things ; yet bitterest sadness lay 
within it, and through his scowl there often 
glistened a tear. 

In such inward disquietudes it would have 
been a blessing to communicate in trustful 
kindness with other men. However, he kept 
his secret locked up in himself, judging that if 
spoken it would meet with little sympathy, 
perhaps even be but imperfectly understood. 
By light companions he was now and then 
bantered on his melancholic mood ; but these 
he dispatched with tart enough replies, and 
himself only withdrew with his alleged imagi- 
nary woes still farther from their circle. To 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. 35 

his mother least of all could he impart 
these cares. In his occasional visits, the good 
woman had not failed to notice some unfa- 
vourable change in his temper ; but as his 
conduct still seemed strictly regular, she had 
taken little heed of this, and imputed it to 
more transitory causes. Besides, she was be- 
coming more and more immersed in her reli- 
gious feelings, more divided from the world's 
cares ; and when she counselled her son, it 
was her sole earnest injunction that he would 
study to be right with God, and prepared for 
the change, which for him as for her and 
every one would be irrevocable, and lay near 
at hand. Occasionally she may have sus- 
pected that all was not right; but, if so, to 
rectify it was beyond her sphere ; and she 
trusted that the same good providence, which 
had led herself through so many thorny and 
steep paths, would also be the guide and 
protector of all that was hers. At last, some 
two years ago, her health declining, she had 
moved, by the advice of her physician, into a 
kinder climate ; and was now living far south 



36 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

in her native county, in the family of a wid- 
owed sister, where Wotton had never yet seen 
her. The visit had been unexpectedly pro- 
tracted from month to month, and seemed at 
last as if it would not end. Her letters to him 
were frequent, earnest, and overflowing with 
sublime affection ; often they brought tears . 
into his eyes ; but he could only in return 
give her false assurances of his welfare, and in 
sighs thank Heaven that she knew not what 
had befallen him. 

Without associate, however, he was not al- 
ways to be. In one of his summer rustica- 
tions, since his mother left him, he had be- 
come acquainted with Bernard Swane, or, rath- 
er, Bernard Swane had become acquainted 
with him ; for hearing much of the wonder- 
ful talents, the moodiness, and bitter wayward 
humours of his neighbour, and being himself 
a man of influence, warm-heartedness, and 
singular enthusiasm, he had forced his way 
into the privacy of this youthful misanthrope ; 
had accosted him with such frank kindliness, 
and on subsequent occasions so soothed and 



WOT TON REINFRED. 37 

cherished him in sympathising affection, that 
by degrees he had won his friendship, and 
Wotton had now no secret, economical or 
spiritual, which he did not share in. To both 
parties their intercourse had from the first 
been peculiarly attractive. There was that 
contrast, and at the same time similarity, in 
their natures which gives its highest charm to 
social converse. Bernard was the elder by 
several years, a man of talent, education, and 
restless vigorous activity ; by profession be- 
longing to the law ; already profitably en- 
gaged in the public business of his county, 
and cherishing perhaps, half consciously, hopes 
of yet rising to some far higher department. 
For he was a man of a large, if not a pecul- 
iarly fine spirit ; strong, conscious of his 
strength ; for ever full of practicable and im- 
practicable schemes ; and though he flattered 
himself that the promotion of public good in 
any sphere was his best or only aim, to all 
third parties it was clear enough that Bernard 
had a deep am.bition. Nay in his frank and 
sanguine manner there often appeared the 



38 V/OTTON REINFRED. 

most indubitable outbreakings of vanity ; but 
at the same time of vanity so kindly, social, 
and true-hearted, that you were forced to par- 
don it. The truth is, he v/as of a happy na- 
ture ; existence of itself was sweet and joyous 
to him : he lived for ever in the element of 
hope ; loving" himself, and loving through him- 
self all nature and all men. Rarely could you 
find a person so superior to others, yet so be- 
loved by them, so calculated to please at once 
the many and the few. To Wotton in specu- 
lation, as in conduct, he was a perfect oppo- 
site. The former never believed, the latter 
scarcely ever doubted; hence the one acted 
and concluded, wrong, even absurdly, it might 
be, but still acted and concluded, while the 
other painfully hesitated and inquired. Both 
truly loved goodness; of the two, Wotton 
more fervently, yet Bernard with more trust- 
fulness and effect. In active courage, the lat- 
ter was superior ; in passive, the former; who, 
indeed, had long lived with pain, and for the 
better purpose of his mind had always fronted 
and defied it. Not so with Bernard : he had 



WOT TON REINFRED, 3q 

in secret a deep horror of passive suflering, so 
deep that scarcely even conscience could drive 
him to brave it ; and many times, as it seemed 
to Wotton, he would practise cunning subter- 
fuges, and underhand, nay, unconsciously, 
play Jesuitic tricks with his own convictions 
to escape such dilemmas. That he wished a 
thing to be true was ever with him a strong 
persuasion of its truth. He sympathised in 
Wotton's scepticism ; often he seemed, with a 
deep sigh, to admit that his objections were 
unanswerable, yet himself continued to be- 
lieve. Wotton loved him, for, in spite of draw- 
backs, he felt all his singular worth ; and Ber- 
nard v/as the only human soul that knew him, 
in whose neighbourhood his own exiled, 
marred, and exasperated spirit still felt any 
touch of peace, still saw afar off, though but 
.for a few moments, some glimpses of kind sun- 
shiny life. To produce such effects, to attract 
such a spirit, and be loved by it was no less 
delightful to the other, for if he, as it were, 
protected Wotton, he also admired, nay, al- 
most feared, him ; and, feeling his own superi- 



40 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

ority in strength and good fortune, he often 
felt that in nobleness and merit the balance 
might sway on the other side. 

Thus their friendship rested on the surest 
basis, that of mutual satisfaction and sym- 
pathy ; on the one hand and on the other 
good offices or good wishes, pleasure given 
and received. In their intellectual discus- 
sions, widely as they differed, they by no 
chance quarrelled ; indeed, except in private 
they almost never argued. In society, where, 
except in the company and by the persuasion 
of his friend, Wotton scarcely ever ventured, 
you generally found them on a side ; Bernard 
supporting the good and beautiful in vehe- 
ment, flowing, rhetorical pleadings ; Wotton, 
in bitter sarcasms and with keenest intellect, 
demolishing the false and despicable, and this, 
often in the dialect of his hearers, if no better 
might be, to whom he justly enough appre- 
hended his own would many times have been 
a stone of stumbling. By such half displays 
of his inward nature, poor Wotton's popu- 
larity was seldom increased. Bernard was 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 41 

confessedly a man of parts, by whom it might 
seem less disgraceful to be tutored ; but who 
was this Wotton, this sharp, scornful stripling, 
whom no one meddled with unpunished ? By 
degrees, indeed, he established for himself a 
character of talent, the more wondered at per- 
haps that it was little understood ; nay, observ- 
ant people could not but admit that in his 
rigorous, secluded, gloomy spirit there dwelt 
the strictest justice, and even much positive 
virtue ; but still, these things were conceded 
rather than asserted. Nay, Wotton was less 
than ever a favourite, and the first ineffectual 
effort to despise him too often passed into a 
sentiment of fear, uneasiness, and aversion. 

On the young man himself the conscious- 
ness of this was not without corresponding 
and hurtful influence ; but one good effect 
among many bad was that it bound him still 
more closely to his friend. Bernard was now 
almost his sole society ; a treasure precious, 
therefore, both by reason of its rarity and its 
intrinsic value. Gladly would Bernard have 
rewarded him for such exclusive trust ; gladly 



42 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

have extracted by reasonable ministrations 
the bitterness from his spirit; truly had he 
watched over him in many a sad hour, and 
much did he long- and hope to see his fine 
gifts occupied in wholesome activity. 

Hitherto, however, his efforts had been 
fruitless, or only of transient influence. By 
his counsel Wotton had meditated various 
professions ; that of law he had even for a 
time attempted. But he was too late; the 
young enthusiasm had faded from his heart; 
there was no longer any infinitude in his 
hopes. The technicalities of the subject dis- 
pirited and disgusted his understanding; its 
rewards were distant and dubious, and to him 
of small value. What were wealth and pro- 
fessional fame when the world itself was tar- 
nished in his thoughts, and all its uses weary, 
flat, stale, and unprofitable? There had been 
a time when, like the rest of us, he v/as wont 
to impute his misery to outward circum- 
stances; to think that if this or that were 
granted to his wishes, it would be well with 
him. The fallacy which lurked here experi- 



WOT TON REINFRED. 43 

ence had soon taught him, but not the truth. 
He felt that he was wretched, and must ever 
be so ; he felt as if all men would be so, only 
that their eyes were blinded. 

He abandoned law and hurried into the 
country, not to possess his soul in peace 
as he hoped, but in truth, like Homer's Bel- 
lerophon, to eat his own heart. His love 
of truth, he often passionately said, had 
ruined him ; yet he would not relinquish 
the search to whatever abysses it might 
lead. His rural cares left much of his time 
unoccupied ; in mad misdirection he read 
and meditated, enjoying hours of wild pleas- 
ure, divided by days and nights of pain. It 
was not tedium that he suffered, he had too 
deep an interest to weary, but light came not 
to him — no light ; he wandered in endless 
labyrinths of doubt, or in the void darkness 
of denial. With other men his conversation 
was stinted and irksome, for he had to shroud 
his heart from them in deepest mystery, and 
to him their doings and forbearings were of 
no moment. It was only with Bernard that 



44 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

he could speak from the heart, that he still 
felt himself a man ; scanty but invaluable 
solace, which, it may be, saved him from 
madness or utter despair. 

Such was his mood when a little incident 
quite transformicd the scene. One fine sum- 
mer evening he had ridden over to Bernard's, 
as he was often wont ; but, finding him en- 
gaged with company, was about to retire 
without seeing him, when Bernard himself 
hurried out and constrained him to enter. 
" It is but some one or two young friends," 
said he, " who have come accidentally to see 
my sister. There is ofte among them too," 
added he with a roguish smile, as they ap- 
proached the drawing-room ; but Wotton had 
no time to answer till he found himself in the 
middle of the circle welcomed by the mistress 
of it, and introduced by name to a bright 
young creature, the heroine of the evening, 
whom in his bashfulness he scarcely dared to 
look at, for the presence filled him with painful 
yet sweetest embarrassment. Jane Montagu 
was a name well known to him ; far and wide 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 45 

its fair owner was celebrated for her graces 
and gifts ; herself also he had seen and noted ; 
her slim daintiest form, her soft sylph-like 
movement, her black tresses shading a face 
so gentle yet so ardent ; but all this he had 
noted only as a beautiful vision which he 
himself had scarcely right to look at, for 
her sphere was far from his ; as yet he had 
never heard her voice or hoped that he 
should ever speak with her. Yet surely she 
was not indifferent to him, else whence his 
commotion, his astonishment, his agitation 
now when near her? His spirit was roused 
from its deepest recesses, a thousand dim im- 
ages and vague feelings of gladness and pain 
were clashing in tumultuous vortices within 
him ; he felt as if he stood on the eve of some 
momentous incident — as if this hour were to 
decide the welfare or woe of long future 
years. 

Strange enough ! There are moments of 
trial, of peril, of extreme anxiety, when a man 
whom we reckoned timid becomes the calmest 

and firmest. Reinfred's whole being was in a 
4 



46 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

hurricane; but it seemed as if himself were 
above it, ruling over it, in unwonted strength 
and clearness. His first movement prospered, 
and he went on to prosper. Never had his 
manner been so graceful or free ; never had 
his sentiments been nobler, his opinions more 
distinct, emphatic, or correct. A vain sophis- 
tical young man was afflicting the party with 
much slender and, indeed, base speculation on 
the human mind ; this he resumed after the 
pause and bustle of the new arrival. Wotton, 
by one or two Socratic questions in his hap- 
piest style, contrived to silence him for the 
night. The discomfiture of this logical ma- 
rauder was felt and even hailed as a benefit by 
every one ; but sweeter than all applauses was 
the glad smile, threatening every moment to 
become a laugh, and the kind, thankful look 
with which Jane Montagu repaid the victor. 
He ventured to speak to her; she answered 
him with attention, nay, it seemed as if there 
were a tremor in her voice ; and perhaps she 
thanked the dusk that it half hid her. The 
conversation took a higher tone, one fine 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 47 

thought called forth another ; each, the speak- 
ers and the hearers alike, felt happy and well 
at ease. To Wotton the hours seemed mo- 
ments ; he had never been as now ; the words 
from those sweetest lips came over him like 
dew on thirsty grass ; his whole soul was as if 
lapped in richest melodies, and all better feel- 
ings within him seemed to whisper, " It is 
good for us to be here." At parting the fair 
one's hand was in his ; in the balmy twilight 
with the kind stars above them he spoke some- 
thing of meeting again which was not contra- 
dicted ; he pressed gently those small soft fin- 
gers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily 
or angrily withdrawn. 

Wotton had never known love : brought 
up in seclusion from the sex, immersed in soli- 
tary speculation, he had seen the loveliest half 
of our species only from afar, and learned in 
his poetical studies to view them with an al- 
most venerating reverence. Elysian dreams, 
a fairyland of richest blessedness his young 
fancy had indeed shaped for him ; but it lay 
far apart from the firm earth, with impassable 



48 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

abysses intervening ; and doubting and disbe- 
lieving all things, the poor youth had never 
learned to believe in himself. That he, the 
obscure, forlorn, and worthless, could ever 
taste the heaven of being loved ; that for him 
any fair soul should ever languish in fond 
longing, seemed a thing impossible. Other 
men were loved ; but he was not as other 
men ; did not a curse hang over him ? had not 
his life been a cup of bitterness from the be- 
ginning? Thus in timid pride he withdrew 
within his own fastnesses, where, baited by a 
thousand dark spectres, he saw himself as if 
constrained to renounce in unspeakable sad- 
ness the fairest hopes of existence. And now 
how sweet, how ravishing the contradiction ! 
" She has looked on thee ! " cried he ; " she, the 
fairest, noblest ; she does not despise thee ; 
her dark eyes smiled on thee ; her hand was 
in thine ; some figure of thee was in her soul ! " 
Storms of transport rushed through his heart 
as he recalled the scene, and sweetest intima- 
tions that he also was a man, that for him also 
unutterable joys had been provided. 



WOTTON REIN FRED. ^g 

Day after day he saw and heard his fair 
Jane; day after day drank rapture from her 
words and looks. She sang to him, she played 
to him ; they talked together, in gaiety and 
earnestness, unfolding their several views of 
human life, and ever as it seemed glancing 
afar off at a holy though forbidden theme. 
Never had Wotton such an audience; never 
was fine thought or noble sentiment so re- 
warded as by the glance of those dark eyes, 
by the gleam which kindled over that soft and 
spirit-speaking face. In her, hour after hour, a 
fairer and fairer soul unveiled itself ; a soul of 
quickest vision and gracefuUest expression, so 
gay yet so enthusiastic, so blandishing yet so 
severe ; a being all gentleness and fire ; meek, 
timid, loving as the dove and high and noble 
as the eagle. To him her presence brought 
with it airs from heaven. A balmy rest en- 
circled his spirit while near her; pale doubt 
fled away to the distance, and life bloomed up 
with happiness and hope. The young man 
seemed to awake as from a haggard dream ; 
he had been in the garden of Eden, then, and 



50 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

his eyes could not discern it! But now the 
black walls of his prison melted away, and the 
captive was alive and free in the sunny spring ! 
If he loved this benignant disenchantress ? 
His whole heart and soul and life were hers ; 
yet he had never thought of love; for his 
whole existence was but a feeling which he 
had not yet shaped into a thought. 

But human life were another matter than 
it is could it grant such things continuance. 
Jane Montagu had an ancient maiden aunt 
who was her hostess and protectress, to whom 
she owed all and looked for all. With the 
eyes of fifty, one sees not as with the eyes 
of fifteen. What passed between the good 
maiden and her aunt we know not; the old 
lady was proud and poor ; she had high hopes 
from her niece, and in her meagre, hunger- 
bitten philosophy, Wotton's visits had from 
the first been but faintly approved of. 

One morning he found his fair Jane con- 
strained and sad ; she was silent, absent ; she 
seemed to have been weeping. The aunt left 
the room. He pressed for explanation, first in 



WOT TON REINFRED. gj 

kind solicitude, then with increasing appre- 
hension; but none was to be had, save only 
broken hints that she was grieved for herself, 
for him, that she had much to suffer, that he 
must cease to visit her. It was vain that the 
thunderstruck Wotton demanded, " Why ? 
Why ? " " One whom she entirely depended 
on had so ordered it, and for herself she had 
nothing to do but to obey." She resisted all 
entreaty ; she denied all explanation : her 
words were firm and cold ; only by a thrill of 
anguish that once or twice quivered over her 
face could a calmer man have divined that 
she was suffering within. Wotton's pride was 
stung ; he rose and held out his hand : *' Fare- 
well, then, madam ! " said he, in a low steady 
voice ; " I will not — " She put her hand in 
his ; she looked in his face, tears started to 
her eyes ; but she turned away her head, hasti- 
ly pressed his hand, and sobbing, whispered, 
scarcely audibly, " Farewell ! " He approached 
in frenzy ; his arms were half-raised to encir- 
cle her ; but starting back she turned on him 
a weeping face — a face of anger, love, and 



525 WOT TON REIN FRED, 

agony. She sternly motioned to him to with- 
draw, and Wotton scarce knew where he was 
till with mad galloping he had reached his 
own solitudes, and the town, and the fair 
Jane, and all his blessed dreams were far 
away. 

This look of hers he had long time to medi- 
tate, for it was the last. How many burning 
thoughts he had to front ; how many wild 
theories he formed of his misfortunes; how 
many wild projects to repair it! But all in 
vain : his letters were unanswered, or an- 
swered in cold, brief commonplaces. At last 
he received a pressing entreaty, or rather, a 
peremptory injunction, to write no more. 
Then hope no longer lingered ; thickest night 
sank over his spirit, and a thousand furies 
were sent forth to scourge him. They wxre 
cruel days that followed. By-and-bye came 
reports that his Jane was to be wedded — wed- 
ded to Edmund Walter, a gay young man of 
rank, a soldier, and, as Wotton rated him, a 
debauchee, but wealthy, well-allied, and in- 
fluential in the county. The wedding-day, it 



WOT TON REINFRED. 53 

was even stated, had been fixed. " What have 
I to do with it ? " said Wotton, as he shud- 
dered at the thought ; ** she is nought to me, 
I am nought to her." 

But some secret change had occurred, and 
the public expectation was baulked. The 
marriage did not take place, no one knew 
why ; only Walter had left the neighbourhood 
in indignant haste ; the aunt, also, and her 
niece, the latter apparently in deepest sorrow, 
had closed their house and retired to their 
friends in London. The talk of gossips was 
loud and manifold, but no light could be elicit- 
ed ; a curtain of mystery still enveloped the 
transaction, and one spiteful hypothesis only 
gave place to another as spiteful and no bet- 
ter founded. 

What effect all this produced on the soli- 
tary Wotton we need not describe at length. 
His heart bled inwardly ; in solitude he suf- 
fered, for his pride and his affection had 
alike been cruelly wounded ; it was long 
before even Bernard could penetrate into his 
confidence, and soothe his darkened and ex- 



54 WOTTON REINFRED, 

asperated spirit by a touch of human sym- 
pathy. 

Six months were now gone ; the whole in- 
cident had removed into distance, and Wotton 
could now see clearly how it had been and 
how it was to be with him. He felt that he 
had loved not wisely, yet irrevocably, and in 
vain. A celestial vision had entranced him, 
and now it was all fled away, and the grim 
world lay round him, sicklied over by inef- 
fectual longing. One little month so fair and 
heavenly ; such a blissful meeting, such a 
stern good-night ! He felt with tenfold force 
that all hope was lies, that man's life was but 
a mockery and a fever-dream. By degrees 
he sank into iron quietude. " What is the 
world," said he, " but a gloomy vision as the 
poets have called it, and your fair landscapes, 
so sunshiny, so green, so far-stretching, are 
but cunning paintings on the walls. We are 
captives, but it is only for a season. Death 
is still our birthright; destiny itself cannot 
doom us not to die. Strong death, the frown- 
ing but helpful and never-failing friend ! Cow- 



WOTTON REINFRED. 55 

ards have painted him as a spectre ; he is a 
benignant genius bearing freedom and rest to 
weary, heavy-laden man ! " 

To all this Bernard listened with regret, 
yet also with sympathy and firm hopes of bet- 
ter things. This dreary stagnancy he knew 
would not be final ; Wotton's nature was vir- 
tuous, it would at length become believing, 
become active, become happy. For malig- 
nant activity it was too noble and moral, 
for such icy rest too passionate. Nay, even 
as it stood, was not a burst of fierce ten- 
derness, or far-glancing despair every now 
and then breaking forth as if in spite of 
him? 

Bernard had half-foreseen his passion for 
Jane Montagu, and hoped that it might lead 
him back to life, and in the end make two 
worthy and beloved beings happy. Painfully 
as the issue had deceived him, he did not 
slacken his efforts or abate his confidence. 
This journey he had diligently contrived and 
recommended, in the course of which many 
things, as he hoped, might occur to solace, to 



56 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

excite and instruct the marred and afflicted 
spirit of the young man, and so in the end 
to recall him from those regions of baleful 
shadows into the light of truth and living 
day. 



CHAPTER III. 

Well mounted, wrapped and equipped 
for travelling, our friends were on horseback 
at an early hour. The sunbeam was still dewy 
and level as they reached by a slanting path 
the brow of the hill-range which bounded 
in the valley to the left, and Wotton looked 
back for a moment on the blue streak of 
smoke which was rising from his own chim- 
ney far down in the bottom, where all that he 
possessed or delighted to remember on earth 
lay clustered together in peaceful brightness. 
The sound of a distant steeple-clock came 
faint and saddened through the sunny morn- 
ing. " How trim the burgh stands among its 
woods and meadows ! " cried Bernard, looking 
far across the dale ; " how gay its red steeples 
rise through the fleece of blue, where many a 
thrifty mother is cooking breakfast for her 



58 WOT TON REINFRED. 

loved ones ! The place is alive and astir and 
full of busy mortals though you think here 
you might cover it all with your hat. It is 
speaking to us, too, with its metal tongue ! " 

Wotton moved on, for to him it was speak- 
ing not in pleasure but in pain. It was the 
sound which had announced to him in school- 
boy years the scene of his daily martyrdom ; it 
was the sound he had often heard beside Jane 
Montagu; the note of that bell was getting 
doleful and of evil presage to him. 

'' I know not how it comes," said he, " but 
to my imagination this journey of ours, simple 
as it is, seems strangely momentous. It is as 
if we were leaving our hampered but safe and 
hospitable ark to venture forth on a world of 
waters." 

"A sign that hope is not dead in you," 
said Bernard, " since you can still fear. We 
shall return with olive leaves, I prophesy." 

" Or at least fly to and fro upon the waters," 
answered Wotton. *' Well, that is better than 
pining in the prison. We shall be among the 
mountains to-morrow," added he cheerily. 



WOT TON REINFRED. 5^ 

" Those granite peaks are shining on us as if 
they were made of sapphire, and near at hand 
they are but like other rocks. So man was 
made to be deceived." 

Wotton as a travelling companion, at least 
to Bernard, was peculiarly delightful. The 
excitement of a fine exercise, in which he 
took pleasure and excelled, seemed to shake 
the vapours from his spirit and awaken in 
it all beautiful and healthful feelings. In the 
glow of motion, under the thousandfold be- 
nign influences of rural nature, he could many 
times for a while attain to self-forgetfulness, 
and pour forth in free and even glad effusion 
the sensations of the hour. His moody cares 
retired to the distance and formed as it were 
a ground of deepest black, on which the 
bright, lovely, nay, sometimes sportful imagery 
of his mind looked out with double grace. 
With Bernard his conversation was at all 
times, and especiall}^ on such occasions, of the 
most p)leasurable sort. There was in them 
that agreement of feeling and disagreement of 
opinion, that similarity in dissimilarity, which 



6o WOT TON REINFRED. 

is justly thought to form the great charm of 
conversation. Much as they disputed they 
never quarrelled. 

The scene and the lovely weather were of 
a kind to maintain the most genial humour. It 
was a region as yet unvisited of mail-coaches, 
traversed only by the solitarj^ horseman, or 
some wayworn cadger toilsomely collecting for 
city consumpt the minor produce of the dis- 
trict ; a region of knoll and hollow, of modest 
streamlet, and lone-lying tree-shaded farm ; 
the mower was stooping in the valleys, where 
as yet the fields were all of the greenest ; and 
ever, as they mounted any height, our friends 
saw before them afar off the long narrow Frith 
winding like silver among its craggy head- 
lands or grey sands ; beyond which, over 
many an intervening range, towered up in 
white light in the extreme distance the world 
of mountains, with its blue tops and shadowy 
chasms shutting in like a land of romance a 
land of so many fair realities. 

Pleasantly journeying, amid abundant talk, 
they had reached before sunset the strand of 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 6i 

the Frith ; where advancing to the end of one 
among several long rude piers of wattle-work 
fronted on the other side by several corre- 
sponding piers which extended through sand 
and silt and enabled the ferrymen to ply their 
trade at all seasons of the tide, their signal 
was soon answered, and two gnarled weather- 
beaten rowers, with a helmsman and a huge 
shapeless boat had in a few minutes landed 
man and horse on the farther shore. Front- 
ing and close by stood a rather gay-looking 
mansion, which it seemed was an inn and 
bathing establishment, and where our friends 
proposed continuing for the night. During 
their short voyage Wotton had remarked that 
the helmsman eyed him somewhat too curious- 
ly ; he was still farther struck, indeed offended, 
when the same personage, who appeared like- 
wise to be an under -waiter, continued to 
glance at him, nay, seemed also to have 
awakened the curiosity of his official supe- 
rior ; for ever and anon as the two were 
covering with much bustle a frugal enough 
table, they kept privily casting looks on our 



62 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

hero, who at length determined to end their 
survey. 

" My friends." said he," is there anything 
especially remarkable in my appearance that 
you so gaze at me? Have I ever had the 
honour of your acquaintance for good or bad ; 
or are you apprehensive I may do your estab- 
lishment here an ill turn ? " 

" Thousand pardons ! " said they of the 
apron, ducking very low. '' It is nothing, sir," 
added the head waiter, '' but you are so very 
like a picture we have here. You will excuse 
our freedom, sir ! " 

'' Picture ? " said Wotton. 

'■' A gold locket with a miniature : an hon- 
est countryman found it among the mount- 
ains ; thought some of our guests in their 
pleasure excursions might have lost it, so he 
brought it hither, but no one claimed it ; and 
the thing is still here waiting for an ov/ner. 
You shall see it, sir." 

The man left the apartment, and soon re- 
turned with the trinket in question. It was a 
pretty enough piece of work ; a little oval 



WOT TON REINFRED. 5^ 

casket of chased gold or filigrane, on a pink 
ribbon, which seemed once to have suspended 
it over some fair bosom. It might have been 
dropped in riding. But what most surprised 
our friends was, on opening the lid, for the 
lock had been broken, to discover in the tiny 
picture what really seemed a decided resem- 
blance to Wotton, As a painting it was of 
little value ; neither the individual tints nor 
the general finish, though apparently great 
pains had been taken with it, betrayed the 
hand of an artist, yet the cast of our hero's 
features did appear to have been aimed at, 
nay, in some points accurately seized ; the 
dark gray eyes under their deep decided 
brows and high arched forehead, the well-pro- 
portioned nose, the somev/hat too shallow 
chin, the cluster}^ dark auburn hair were all 
more or less correctly Wotton's; and about 
the lips there played a mingled half-painful, 
half-lofty expression of scorn, which in some 
passionate moments was still more peculiarly 
his. 

Our travellers, it may well be supposed, 



64 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

scarce knew what to make of this adventure. 
They examined and re-examined the locket, 
they questioned and re-questioned the waiter, 
and all to little purpose. Except that it had 
been found about six weeks ago, on a mount- 
ain road at some fifteen miles distance, he 
could tell them nothing. Wotton, in particu- 
lar, with the vague imagination, which at such 
an age a smaller circumstance will excite, 
could not help feeling an unusual interest in 
the matter, and determined if possible at no 
rate to part with this copy of himself, which 
chance had so strangely sent him. 

" This trinket is not mine/' said he to the 
waiter, " yet I question v/hether you are like 
to meet with any one who has a better right 
to it. I will leave you my address, and money 
to the full amount for the finder ; if the pict- 
ure be ever claimed, you will know where it is 
to be had ; for in the mean time you must let 
me take it with me." 

The man made little objection, and in re 
turn for the deposit of a few guineas the toy 
was formally made over. For the rest of the 



WOT TON REINFRED. 65 

evening it formed between our friends the 
chief topic of conversation, which indeed on 
Wotton's part was kept up with no great 
spirit. His mind was hunting over all its do- 
mains for some trace of a solution to the mys- 
ter)% or building on this slender basis all man- 
ner of castles in the air. He could not recol- 
lect that he had ever sat to any painter, and 
who was this that had so daintily limned him 
in his absence? One sweetest possibility he 
dared not openly surmise to Bernard, scarcely 
even to himself ; yet a light dawned upon him 
as in the dusky remoteness, and the figure 
of Jane Montagu came forth in new beauty 
saddened over by inexpressible longing. 

At an early hour he retired to his apart- 
ment. His window fronted the sea, over 
which the moon was peering from her couch 
of clouds in the far east, while the tide swell- 
ing forth as if to meet her into every creek 
was murmuring hoarse and slow through the 
mellow night. Soft vapours shrouded the 
other shore ; the sea was shipless, for the 
fisher barks were at anchor in their coves ; 



^() WOTTON REINFRED. 

the moonbeam flickered on a solitude of wa- 
ters. The thought of life and its mysteries 
and vicissitudes came over Wotton's troublous 
but solemn mind. He saw the images of 
Time as if flitting so fair and transient through 
the night of Eternity ; yet kind scenes crowd- 
ed round him, and the earth vfith its stinted 
joys and man with his marred destiny, seemed 
but the lovelier that they were weak and with- 
out continuance. The picture was in his hand, 
was already suspended round his neck. ** Why 
dost thou remember hcr^'' said he to himself, 
'' when she is for ever hid from thy eyes ? 
She came like a heavenly messenger preach- 
ing peace to my spirit, and peace was not 
appointed me. O Jane Montagu ! why was 
the tinsel of the world precious to thee, and 
its fine gold of no price ? Surely, surely thy 
heart said nay, nay at that cruel hour ; we 
might have been so blessed, so rich, so passing 
rich ! — I will see her, at least," cried he, ris- 
ing ; *^ something whispers that she thinks of 
me, that she loves me ; and without her will 
no power on earth or under it shall part us." 



CHAPTER IV. 

It was in a pleasurable mood, and with 
hopes vaguely excited, that our friends en- 
tered the mountain region. Mountains were 
not new to either of them ; but rarely are 
mountains seen in such combined majesty and 
grace as here. The rocks are of that sort 
called primitive by the mineralogist, which 
always arrange themselves in masses of a 
rugged and gigantic character ; but their rug- 
gedness is softened by a singular elegance of 
form ; in a climate favourable to vegetation, 
the gray shapeless cliff itself covered with 
lichens rises through a garment of foliage or 
verdure, and white bright tufted cottages are 
clustered round the base of the everlasting 
granite. In fine vicissitude beauty alternates 
with grandeur : you ride through stony hol- 
lows, along strait passes traversed by torrents, 



68 WOT TON REINFRED, 

and overhung by high walls of rock ; now 
winding amid broken shaggy chasms, and 
huge fragments ; now suddenly emerging into 
some emerald valley, where the streamlet col- 
lects into a lake, and man has found a fair 
dwelling, and it seems as if peace had estab- 
lished herself in the stony bosom of strength. 

All this is not without effect on thinking 
minds ; in Wotton it co-operated with much 
that he already felt ; for the incident of last 
night, though as if by tacit consent it was not 
spoken of, still lurked in his thoughts, predis- 
posing him to vague wondrous imaginations 
and all high feeling. Bernard was full of 
eloquence ; praising the beauty of nature, the 
benignity of Providence, and the happiness 
of men ; Wotton the while answered him, as 
a stout sceptic, indeed, but as a sceptic that 
grieved, not rejoiced to be so, and thus for 
both parties the conversation was entertain- 
ing, for with both such topics, and so treated, 
were chief favourites. They were in the bot- 
tom of a rude solitary glen, engaged so pleas- 
antly, when the tramp of a horse was heard 



WOTTON REIN FRED. 6q 

on the left, and presently a rider was observed 
issuing by a steep side path from a sort of 
break in the hills, and seemed as if advancing 
like themselves, though from a different point, 
toward the head of the valley. 

The horseman, in fact, soon joined them, 
and his courteous salutation being as court- 
eously returned, the common-place introduc- 
tions to talk ere long gave place to more in- 
teresting topics, and a pleasant feeling of com- 
panionship diffused itself over the party. The 
stranger seemed a man of some fifty years ; 
of a staid, determinate, yet, at the same time, 
winning manner ; at once polished, intelligent, 
and sociably frank : to look at him and listen 
to him you felt inclined to assign the man a 
higher rank than his equipment could have 
challenged, for he was well and sufficiently 
rather than splendidly mounted and dressed ; 
and it was only in his clear kind eyes and 
strong yet calm and gentle look that you read 
a title to superior deference. Bernard was 
celebrating the beauty of the scenery ; the 
stranger spoke of it as one familiar with the 



70 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

subject and the district, yet briefly and with 
judgment rather than enthusiasm. 

" A passing traveller," said Bernard, " might 
envy your mountaineers their constant abode 
among so many noble influences, did not one 
remember the effect of habit how it deadens 
all our impressions both of beauty and de- 
formity." 

" What is grander than the sun ? " added 
Wotton ; *' yet we all see it daily, and few 
think of the heavenly lamp save as a ripener 
of corn. The moon, too, and the stars are 
measured in their courses : but astronomy is 
praised or tolerated because it helps us in 
navigating ships, and the divine horologe is 
rated as a supplement or substitute for Harri- 
son's timekeeper." 

The stranger glanced slightly at his ve- 
hement companion, yet without expression of 
displeasure, then answered : '' True goodness 
of all sorts must have its life and root within 
ourselves ; it depends on external appliances 
far less than we suppose. The great point is 
to have a healthy mind, or, if I may say so, a 



WOT TON REINFRED. yi 

right power of assimilation^ for the elements of 
beauty and truth lie round us on all sides, 
even in the meanest objects, if we could but 
extract them. Claude Lorraine, the painter 
of so many heavenly landscapes, was bred a 
colour-grindor ; the noble-minded Epictetus 
was a slave. As to the effect of natural scen- 
ery," continued he, '' I think with you that it is 
trifling. The mountaineer has a peculiar way 
of life, and differs from the inhabitant of the 
plains because of it ; differs by reason of the 
things he has to do, but scarcely of the things 
he has to see. No nation has produced fewer 
artists than the Swiss." 

" Indeed," said Wotton, " this effect, what- 
ever be its value, lies in a great measure open 
to all men, dwell where they may. The 
bleakest moor I can stand on is visited by the 
eye of Heaven, and bears on its bosom the 
traces of innumerable years. The pebble I 
strike from my path was severed from distant 
mountains in the primeval convulsions of Na- 
ture, and has rolled for ages in the depth of 
waters. This streamlet, nameless except to a 



f2 WOTTEN REIN FRED. 

few herdsmen, was meted out by the hand of 
the Omnipotent as well as the great ocean ; it 
is ancient as the Flood, and was murmuring 
through its solitude when the ships of ^neas 
ascended the Tiber, or Silva's Brook was flow- 
ing past by the Oracle of God." . 

" Yet surely," said Bernard, " there are de- 
grees of beauty in external things ; beauty 
more direct, and I will add more pure, than 
those universal attributes which my friend 
here paints so vividly. Is it not the essence 
of all true beauty, of all true greatness, that it 
makes us forget our own little individuality ? 
That we mingle for the moment as if in 
boundless glory, feeling not that we are thus 
and thus, but only \k\.2X we are ; remembering 
nothing of ourselves, least of all that we are 
weak and needy and of short duration?" 

" Surely," answered Wotton. ** And if 
mountain or any other scenery could do this," 
added he, pensively, **it were well worth 
travelling to see." 

" One thing, at least, you have many times 
occasion to observe, no topic sooner or more 



I 



WOT TON REIN FRED. ^3 

painfully wearies us than description of scen- 
ery. Your view-hunter is the most irksome 
of all articulate-speaking men," 

" A proof of the little interest we really 
take in views," answered the stranger. 

" Besides," added Wotton, " if long-winded 
he is generally in part insincere : there is cant 
in his raptures ; he is treating us not with 
his subject, but with his own false vainglori- 
ous self. At best it is in sensations not in 
thoughts that he is describing ; and no sensa- 
tions, except our own, can long fix our atten- 
tion." 

" Gentlemen," said the stranger, with a 
kind smile, *'by your accent I take you to be 
Scotch, yet your philosophy is not what we 
call Scotch." 

" Is Scotch philosophy in very bad odour 
here?" inquired Wotton, somewhat piqued 
for the honour of his country. 

" In bad odour I should not say," replied 
the stranger, '' for our little commonwealth is 
a willing member of the great one ; and 
everywhere, disguise it as we may, in the 



74 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

senate, the press, the pulpit, the parlour, 
and the market, David Hume is ruler of the 
world." 

"The pulpit?" cried Bernard. 

'' I have said," answered the stranger ; 
" but it is a subject too long for present dis- 
cussion. On the whole, I honour the Scotch, 
and quarrel not with their philosophy. But 
see, gentlemen," continued he, '' our roads 
will soon part ; at the corner of that gray cliff 
I turn to another valley. You are still far 
from your inn : if a stra,nger's invitation 
might prevail, you shall go with me and rest 
you in the House of the Wold. The path is 
rough, but the place is tolerable, and good 
welcome will not fail you. Come with me," 
added he, " I will show you wonders." 

To Bernard, fond of adventures and hope- 
ful of all dubious issues, these were no un- 
pleasant words. He looked wistfully on Wot- 
ton, who, rating the speech as little more 
than a flourish of rhetoric, had no thought of 
accepting the proposal, no thought that their 
acceptance of it was desired. But as the 



WOT TON REINFRED. 75 

stranger pulled up at the parting of the roads, 
and with the kindest frankness in words and 
looks that could not be mistaken, assured 
them that their presence would cause not 
trouble but much enjoyment; and withal, 
smiling on Wotton, with whom, as he per- 
ceived, lay the hindrance, told him that it 
were hard to part till they had talked of 
Scotch philosophy, the latter yielded ; and 
so, after some complimentary formalities, our 
travellers turned their horses to the right 
along with him. Their road or rather track 
lay up a winding rocky glen and many times 
crossed the brook which was gurgling along 
its bottom to join the larger stream of the 
main valley. 

Ascending the pass, after half an hour's 
incommodious riding, they found the brook, 
no longer fed by subsidiary springs, dimin- 
ished to a rill, which also in a httle while 
ending in a boggy delta disappeared from 
their side. A rough causeway, which seemed 
to be the Avork of man, conducted them 
across the swamp, still overshaded by craggy 



76 WOT TON REIN FRED, 

heights ; till as they proceeded, the bog again 
drew to a point, and another thread of water 
began to indent with its tiny channel the bot- 
tom of another glen, descending in the oppo- 
site direction, but narrow, deep, winding and 
rocky as the former. 

^^ Facilis descensus Averni^' said the guide, 
smiling : " the worst of our road is past." 
Ere long, in fact, the walls of their chasm be- 
gan to widen and soften ; copse wood alter- 
nating with verdure mantled the steep, a 
shepherd's hut rose cheerful and secure in 
the hollow, and at the next turn our travellers 
emerged into a scene which no stranger ap- 
proaching it by such a road could view with- 
out astonishment. 

" It is the Happy Valley of Prince Rasse- 
las!" cried Wotton. 

" It is not Avernus, but Elysium ! " cried 
Bernard. 

*' It is the House of the Wold," said the 
guide, '' where refreshment and rest are wait- 
ing us." 

A circular valley of some furlongs in 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 



77 



diameter lay round them, like a huge amphi- 
theatre, broken only in its contour by the 
entrance of two oblique chasms like the one 
they had left ; on its level bottom of the 
purest green stood a large stately mansion, 
which seemed to be of granite, for in the sun- 
beams it glittered from amid its high clusters 
of foliage like a palace of El Dorado, over- 
laid with precious metaL Behind it, and on 
both sides at a distance, the hills sloped 
up in gentle wavy curvature ; the sward was 
of the greenest, embossed here and there 
with low dark- brown frets of crag, or spotted 
by some spreading solitary tree and its shad- 
ow ; in front at a corner of the valley lay 
the small lake, hemmed in by woody cliffs : 
and beyond and around all this^ ridge after 
ridge, higher and bluer and wilder as 
they receded were seen the peaks of the 
mountains watching in severe loveliness, 
like everlasting guardians, over a scene so 
calm. 

Servants hastened out an the lawn to meet 

our travellers, who a few minutes after found 
6 



7a WOT TON REINFRED. 

themselves in a large parlour before the lady 
of the mansion. 

" Dorothy, my love," said the host, " I 
have made a capture in the east to-day. 
Here are two strangers, whom we must 
change into friends." 

" The beginning of friendship is good 
offices," replied she, w^ith graceful courtesy : 
" you must be faint and wearied, as pilgrims 
are wont; and dinner will not come for an 
hour." 

For the present our friends declined any 
refreshment ; and after some little conversa- 
tion, which could not but be general and 
formal, they gladly retired to their chambers, 
under pretext of dressing, a process which, 
with the scanty wardrobe of travellers, was 
soon enough performed, but chiefly that they 
might have time to consider their adventure, 
and collect their thoughts, which this ren- 
counter and its unexpected issue had some- 
what put to rout. 

The pealing of a gong in a little while sum- 
moned our friends to the drawing-room, from 



WOT TON REIN FRED. yg 

which in a few minutes a party of some 
twelve persons moved down in order to a 
table tastefully and plenteously furnished. 
Sprightly conversation enlivened the repast ; 
the company seemed singularly varied for its 
number ; each an original in his class ; men, 
as it appeared generalh^, of intellect and edu- 
cation, rather than of special rank or breed- 
ing ; yet all animated by good humour, and in- 
sensibly participating in the gentle influences 
of their hosts, whose manners indicated a re- 
finement in every point corresponding with 
the highest station. Their fair mistress, for, 
though elderly, she still bore traces of a sin- 
gular beauty, a woman of the stateliest yet hu- 
manest respect, presided over them with the 
graceful dignity of a queen. To Wotton the 
sound of her voice was melody ; the few 
words she spoke were of the most polished, 
yet expressive sort ; her little sentences, so 
meekly and opportunely uttered, stood before 
the mind like living images, full of loveliness 
and persuasion. Fain would the poor youth 
have spoken to her, fain have replied to her 



8o WOT TON REIN FRED. 

courtesies with a copiousness proportioned to 
his feeling of them ; but his heart was pressed 
together by so singular an environment; he 
felt as if he had no right to be so splendidly 
welcomed, as if it were by mistake that he 
was here. 

Other ladies also there were ; young, beau- 
tiful, and blooming; visitors, as it might be 
gathered, from no distant neighbourhood ; and 
not without fit gallants proud to do them serv- 
ice : but these fair ones skirmished only in 
buckram or from afar ; what manner of per- 
sons they might be you did not learn ; and 
Virgil could only have described them as 
pulchram Annam, pulchramque Elisam. With 
one of these Bernard entered on a sort of dis- 
tant flirtation to Wotton's astonishment, who 
could not comprehend such audacity, or help 
half-envying the success it appeared to meet 
Vv'ith. Though he had loved, he was an utter 
novice in affairs of love : vain had it been for 
Chesterfield to tell him and assure him that 
every woman wishes us to love her ; in his 
tenfold diffidence and disbelief it never struck 



WOTTON REINFRED, gl 

him that his approbation could be of worth to 
any one. He was even threatening to become 
absent, for sad thoughts were gathering on 
him ; these beauties were blond ; but dark 
locks clustered round another face far nobler ; 
and black eyes had told him such things ! 
Lies they were — perhaps not altogether lies ! 
yet lovelier than any truth : it was pain to re- 
member them, but to forget them was like a 
living death. 

The cloth being removed, conversation, 
which had hitherto turned chiefly on the vari- 
ous personal adventures of the morning, be- 
gan to take a wider range. Public occur- 
rences and persons, glanced at rather than dis- 
cussed, led the way to topics more strictly 
intellectual ; to abstract views of men and 
things set forth in criticisms, expositions, com- 
parisons, and the other ever-varying modes 
b}^ which in social hours our individual Philos- 
ophy of Life may be so delightfully communi- 
cated and apprehended. 

To Wotton, much, indeed passionately as 
he liked such conversation, the tone of the 



82 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

present company was, nevertheless, in some 
degree alien : the feeling it awoke in him was 
one of surprise and unrest as well as pleasure. 
The Attic salt, that air of candour and good- 
ness, those striking glimpses of man's nature 
and its sufferings and wants, had his sympathy 
and hearty approval ; but he sought in vain 
for the basis on which these people had built 
their opinions ; their whole form of being 
seemed different from his. Men equally in- 
formed and cultivated he had sometimes met 
with, but seldom or never had he seen such 
culture of the intellect combined with such 
moral results, nay, as it appeared, conducing 
to them. Here were fearless and free think- 
ers, yet they seemed not unbelievers, but, on 
the contrary, possessed with charity and zeal : 
their affirmations and denials would not har- 
monise in his conception. It is not always 
that originality, even when true and estima- 
ble, pleases us at first ; if it go beyond our 
sphere it is much more likely to unsettle and 
provoke us. Of much that he heard, Wotton 
knew not what to determine ; it was a strain 



WOTTON REINFRED. 83 

of thought which suited not with any of his 
categories, either of truth or error ; in which, 
therefore, he could only mingle stintedly and 
timidly, for he felt as if hovering in the vortex 
of some strange element, in which as yet he 
had not learned to move. 

What, for instance, could he make of such 
tenets as this, in which, however, several so- 
ber-minded persons, their host among the 
number, seemed partially to acquiesce ? 

** Demonstrability is not the test of truth ; 
logic is for what the understanding sees, what 
is truest we do not see, for it has no form, be- 
ing infinite; the highest truth cannot be ex- 
pressed in words." 

" How is it expressed, then ? " cried the 
brisk voice of Henry Williams ; a speaker, 
whom, alone of them all, Wotton had from 
the first understood. 

" How is it expressed, then ? " cried Wot- 
ton and several more, in tones partly of in- 
quiry, partly of cavil. 

" It is expressed oftener than it is listened 
to or comprehended," said the other in reply ; 



84 WOT TON REINFRED. 

*' for our ears are heavy, and the divine har- 
mony of the spheres is drowned in the gross, 
harsh dissonance of earthly things. Ex- 
pressed ? In the expiring smile of martyrs ; 
in the actions of a Howard and a Cato ; in the 
still existence of all good men. Echoes of it 
come to us from the song of the poet ; the sky 
with its azure and its rainbow and its beautiful 
vicissitudes of morn and even shows it forth ; 
the earth also with her floods and everlasting 
Alps, the ocean in its tempests and its calms. 
It is an open secret, but we have no clear 
vision for it : woe to us if we have no vision 
at all!" 

" JLantism ! Kantism ! " cried several voices. 
** German mysticism ! mere human faculties 
cannot take it in." Wotton looked at this 
singular exotic speaker; he was a man of 
sixty, yet still hale and fresh ; thin gray hair 
lay over a head of striking proportions ; the 
face was furrowed and overlined with traces 
of long, deep, and subtle thought, of feeling 
rather fine than passionate, and this of pain as 
much as pleasure ; there was especially a look 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. ' 85 

of strange anxiety in the eyes ; a look at once 
of vehemence and fear : indeed the whole man 
seemed labouring with some idea, which he 
longed vainly to impart, for which, while he 
sought earnestly some outward form, he knew 
beforehand that none would be found. 

" My good Dalbrook," said Maurice (such 
was the landlord's name), " we are hard bested 
with these gainsayers. Do you mean that the 
sense of poetic beauty and moral obligation is 
the highest truth, and to be apprehended not 
by conviction but by persuasion, not by cult- 
ure of the head but of the heart ? " 

** There is a truth of the market place," 
continued Dalbrook, attending little to the 
question ; " a truth of the laboratory, and a 
truth of the soul. The first two are of things 
seen and their relations, they are practical or 
physically scientific, and belong to the under- 
standing ; the last is of things unseen and be- 
longs exclusively to the reason." 

'' Reason, understanding ? Things unseen ? " 
cried the sceptics. 

" Laplace's M^canique Cdeste, Adam Smith's 



86 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

Wealth of Nations are full of understanding," 
continued Dalbrook, '' but of reason there is 
hardly any trace in either. Alas ! the hum- 
blest peasant reverently offering up his poor 
prayer to God, and in trembling faith draw- 
ing near to Him as to his Father ; thus recogniz- 
ing, worshipping, loving, under emblems how- 
ever rude, the invisible and eternal, has many 
times more reason, mixed as it is with weakness 
and delusion, than vainglorious doctors for 
whose philosophy there is nothing too hard." 

" Then you think with Hucheson that there 
is a moral faculty, and that taste and virtue 
are fiot the result of association ? " cried a 
young Oxonian, with a look of glad earnest- 
ness. 

Dalbrook looked down, arching his eye- 
brows very high. ^' Faculty ! Association ! " 
repeated he, with an unspeakable accent. The 
Oxonian fell back. 

Bernard had listened with no ordinary in- 
terest. " Then pray, sir," said he, " is not this 
understanding like what Bacon calls his lumen 
siccum ; and reason like his lumen madidum^ or 



WOT TON REINFRED. %j 

intellect steeped in affection ? " The old man 
looked up with an air of partial contentment, 
but slightly shook his head. " Understand- 
ing perceives and judges of images and meas- 
ures of things," said he ; " reason perceives 
and judges of what has no measure or image. 
The latter only is unchangeable and everlast- 
ing in its decisions, the results of the former 
change from age to age ; it is for these that 
men persecute and destroy each other; yet 
these comparatively are not worth the name 
of truth, they are not truth, but only ephem- 
eral garments of truth." 

" Then what in heaven's name is truth," 
said an atrabiliar gentleman, whom, in spite of 
his politeness, the whole discussion was too 
evidently wearying. 

" Truth ! " interrupted Williams in his gay 
voice, " Home Tooke's is the best of all defi- 
nitions : truth is simply troweth, or that which 
is trowed, or believed. In this way we have 
many trozveths, and my troweth is very differ- 
ent from thy troweth, and the only rule is that 
the one should let the other live in peace." 



38 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

'''■ It is not essential to being happy,** ob- 
served our Oxonian from beside the fair 
Anna : " the way to happiness is plain before 
all men if they like to follow it.** 

" Aye ! " said the atrabiliar, who seemed to 
be his uncle or some relation. 

" But they miss it," continued the other, 
*'by cowardice and indecision.*' The clear 
eyes and buxom sceptic aspect of this youth 
seemed to vex his relation. 

« My good sir,'* replied he, " we have all 
had pretty views of it ourselves in our time. 
Fair and softly ! There is an age when to 
every man life appears the simplest matter. 
How very manageable 1 Every why has its 
wherefore ; this leads to that, and the whole 
problem of existence is easy and certain as a 
question in the Rule of Three. Multiply the sec- 
ond and third terms together^ and divide the prod- 
uct by the firsts and the quotient will be the an- 
swer I Trust me, friend, before you come to 
my time of day, you will find there is a devil- 
ish fraction always over, do what you will ; 
and if you try to reduce it, it goes into a re- 



WOT TON REINFRED. 89 

peating decimal and leads you the Lord knows 
whither. Life happy ! " continued he : " what 
thinking mortal ever found it so ? Which of 
us might not say with Swift: I have had 
hours that might be tolerated, but none which 
could be enjoyed, and my life in general has 
been misery ! Show me a man that is happy, 
and I will show thee a man that has — an excel- 
lent nervous system. Williams, when you 
write again, it should be an essay on the Com- 
forts of Stupidity. 

*' I have sometimes taken that matter into 
consideration," answered Williams, *' but I 
fear I should vote rather against you. Much, 
much depends on the nerves ; but something 
also on prudence and wise management. On 
the whole, too, I think Nature is kind to us, 
and it is a blessing to exist : there is more of 
happiness in life than of misery." 

" To me the contrary is clear as noon," 
said the other; "and have not all countries 
and stations recorded opinions in my favour ? 
* Man that is born of a woman is of few days, 
and full of evil,' says the Patriarch. * He is 



90 WOT TON REINFRED. 

born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.' 
* It is better to sit than to walk,' say the In- 
dians, * it is better to sleep than to wake ; but 
to be dead is best of all.' — When an infant was 
presented for consecration to the Mexican 
priest, his address to it was, * Remember that 
thou art come into the world to suffer ; suffer 
then, and be silent ! ' What more can any of 
us say ? " 

" But there is a fairer land on the other 
side of the dark waters," said Doroth}^ 
meekly ; " where pain and sin are banished. 
This is but a winter day's journey to a home 
that is glorious and enduring." 

" Alas ! " ejaculated he, lifting up his fin- 
gers from the bottom of his glass, then slowly 
restoring them, without farther speech, then 
looking up with a smile. On the whole, this 
gentleman had no look of death, but rather of 
jollity and social well-being. At dinner he 
had done fair duty, his wine he was sipping, 
moderately, and not without relish, while he 
talked in this lugubrious dialect, and to what 
spleen soever might be lurking about his 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. qi 

heart, these speeches were evidently giving 
comfortable vent. 

" Surely, sir," said Wotton, who, in spite 
of similarity in thought, sympathised but ill 
with him, "if your opinion is correct, there 
ought to be a change in our social arrange- 
ments. Nay, what use is there for social ar- 
rangements, or aught else in this life, since 
life itself is an evil, and there is nothing be- 
yond it? Let us pay off our clergy, pull 
down our parish churches, and on the ruins 
of each establish simply a bag of arsenic 
for the good of the parish. It might be 
kept up by contribution, and would save 
us tithes. We could have it supended on a 
pole, with this superscription, * Ho, every 
one ! * " 

The atrabiliar himself was forced to join in 
the laugh, which rose on all sides at his ex- 
pense. " A hit ! A palpable hit ! " cried Will- 
iams. ** The arsenic-bag, the arsenic-bag for 
ever! The death of all blue-devil philoso- 
phy!" cried the others. — "Young gentleman, 
I must owe you a thrust," said the atrabiliar, 



92 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

laughing ; " for the present, your arsenic is 
too strong." 

" Nay, cousin, you deserve it," said Mau- 
rice, " for the cause is radically bad ; even if 
true, you were wrong to urge it. Does not 
the adage say, * Speak no evil of your own ? * 
This life, be what it may, is all that has been 
given us, to mend or to mar, to hold and to 
have for better for worse ; and not by reviling 
and contemning what is bad in it, but by ar- 
ranging, furthering, augmenting what is good 
shall we ever turn it to account. Fie ! would 
you list under no better flag than the devil's ? 
Your arch fault-finder is the devil ; it is no 
one's trade but his to dwell on negations, to 
impugn the darkness and overlook the light ; 
and out of the glorious All itself to educe not 
beauty but deformity." 

" I believe," added Williams, " there is 
generally in this very trite topic one of those 
ambiguities in language, which logicians are so 
frequently beset with, and this chiefly occa- 
sions the dilemma. When we speak of happi- 
ness and being happy, we half unconsciously 



WOT TON RE IN FRED, 93 

mean some extra enjoyment if I may say so, 
pleasure, some series of agreeable sensation, 
superadded to the ordinary pleasure of existing, 
which really, if free from positive pain, is all 
we have right to pretend to. In place of 
reckoning ourselves happy when we are not 
miserable, we reckon ourselves miserable 
when not happy. A proceeding, if you think 
of it, quite against rule ! What claim have I 
to be in raptures? None iw the world, except 
that I have taken such a whim into my own 
wise head ; and having got so much, I feel as 
if I could never ^^t my due. It is with man 
and enjoyment as with the miser and money : 
the more he gets the more he wants.'' 

"It is our vanit}^'' said Maurice; "our 
boundless self-conceit. Make us emperors of 
the earth, nay, of the universe, we should soon 
feel as if we deserved it, and much more.'' 

*' Poor fellows I " added Williams, " And 

so when the young gentleman goes forth into 

the worlds and finds that it is really and truly 

not made of wax, but oi stone and metal, and 

will keep its own shape, let the young gentle- 
7 



94 WOT TON REIN FRED, \ 

man fume as he likes ; bless us, what a storm 
he gets into ! What terrible elegies, and pin- 
darics, and Childe Harolds and Sorrows of 
Werter ! O devil take it, Providence is in the 
wrong ; has used him (sweet, meritorious gen- 
tleman) unjustly. He will bring his action of 
damages against Providence ! Trust me, a 
hopeful lawsuit ! " 

'' We are too apt to forget," said Bernard, 
" that for creatures formed as we are, all per- 
manent enjoyment must be active not passive. 
Without evil there were for us no good ; our 
condition is militant ; it is only in labour that 
we rest. Our highest, our only real blessed- 
ness, lies in this very v/arfare with evil. Let 
us conquer it or not ; truly an abundant bless- 
edness, but which, as you remark, we seldom 
take into account in our estimates of life. 
Weighing the attainment, we find it light, 
and the search must go for nothing. We 
would have a paradise of spontaneous pleas- 
ures ; forgetting that in such a paradise the 
dullest spirit would and must grow wearied, 
nay, in time unspeakably wretched." 



WOT TON REINFRED. 95 

" Yes," added Maurice, *' the lubberland of 
the old poets in an impossible chimera ; im- 
possible, even in the region of chimeras." 

" Yet it is this very lubberland," said Ber- 
nard, " which so many pilgrims are seeking, 
and in despair because they cannot find." 

" Most know not what they are seeking," 
said Wotton, '' but wander with the crowd, 
picking sloes and brambles by the way ; 
others run hither and thither, now after this 
gewgaw, now after that. Pilgrims also we 
have, walking apart, with their faces set on 
distant glorious landmarks ; but your sloe- 
and-bramble men are the happiest." 

" In spite of your arsenic," said the atra- 
biliar,^ " 1 half suspect you agree with me ; in 
a private corner you would say, there is little 
happiness in the world, and that little chiefly 
for fools." 

" Happiness is not man's object," said Dal- 
brook, awakening from a muse. '■' He does 
not find it, he ought not to seek it, neither is 
it his highest wish." 

*' Wish ? " cried Williams. " Nay, Dal- 



q6 wot ton rein FRED. 

brook, of all your paradoxes this is the most 
paradoxical." 

'' Pleasure and pain," continued the other, 
little moved, *' are interwoven with every ele- 
ment of life : to love the one and hate the 
other is the essence of all sentient natures, 
nor for a nature merely sentient is there any 
higher law. But was man made only to feel ? 
Is there nothing better in him than a passive 
system of susceptibilities ? Can he move only 
like a finer piece of clockwork when you 
touch this spring and stop when you touch 
that other ? Is his spirit a quality, not a sub- 
stance ? has it no power, no will ? And is his 
freedom, that celestial patent of nobility, the 
crowning gift of God, to mark him for the 
sovereign of this lower world, a mockery and 
a lie ? O philosophy ! O heaven-descended 
wisdom ! what hast thou been made to teach ! 
In thy name cozeners have beguiled us of our 
birthright and sold us into bondage, and we 
are no longer servants of goodness, but slaves 
of self. My friends ! " continued the old man, 
with a singular half-natural, half-preaching 



WOT TON REINFRED. gy 

tone, " I say to you this is false and poisonous 
doctrine, and the heart of every good man 
feels that it is false, and well for him if he 
pluck it out and cast it away for ever ! If not, 
farewell to all religion, all true virtue, all true 
feeling of the beautiful and good, all dignity 
of life, all grandeur beyond it ! Nature, in- 
deed, is kind, and from under the basest phi- 
losophy some gleams of natural goodness will 
break forth ; nay, thank heaven, righteousness 
and mercy are everlasting inmates of man's 
spirit, overcloud them as we may ; but all 
that any creed can do to banish them, this 
does." 

" By day and night ! " cried Williams. 
*' This is wondrous strange. Must a man be- 
come vicious because he wishes to be happy ? 
Because he wishes to be happy ? no ; but be- 
cause he wishes nothing more, yes, doubtless. 
What is virtue ; tell me ? A task to be per- 
formed for hire ? This is not virtue, but profit 
and loss. If ye do these things that good 
may come, what reward have ye ? Do not 
even the Pharisees the same ? " 



C)8 WOTTON REIN FRED 

** But is not He?4.ven promised to the Chris- 
tian as a recompense ? Of Heaven and the 
Christian we might have much to say, but 
this is not the time for it. One thing I am 
sure of, no Christian man was ever a Christian 
because he hoped for Heaven, or would cease 
to be so, though that hope were taken from 
him. Nay, hear me ; true religion is grounded 
not on expectation, but on vision ; not on pal- 
try hopes of pleasure, satisfaction, happiness, 
whatever you may name it, but on all-pervad- 
ing, soul-subduing, infinite love of goodness. 
Self is self, whether its calculations end with 
the passing day, or stretch to the limits of 
eternity." 

" Wire-drawing," murmured the atrabiliar. 
" Metaphysical quibbles," said he. 

'' I am afraid," said Williams, "if you push 
matters so far, there are few of us will stand 
your scrutiny. To say nothing of Utilitarians, 
Epicureans, and other tribes of the avowed 
alien ; it seems to me that many an orthodox 
devout person, if tried by this electrometer, 
might find himself in a shockingly negative 



WOT TON REIN FRED. gg 

state. Self-seeking, if you so understand it, is 
certainly the staple of human principle ; for 
my share, I will confess, I find it difficult to 
see how any living creature ca7t act on any 
other. If you told me, ' This is and will be 
pleasant, that is and will be painful,' should I 
not, must I not, reject the latter and cling to 
the former ?" 

'* But if I told you, ' The pleasant is and 
will be vicious, the painful is and will be 
virtuous ' ? " said Maurice, hastening to assist 
Dalbrook, who seemed to be ill at ease in ar- 
gument. 

" 'Tis an impossible case," said the other. 
" Admit it for a moment ; would you feel no 
twinge, no compunctious visiting ? Nay, if I 
offered that you should to all eternity be filled 
and satisfied with pleasure, on condition that 
you became a villain and a fool, supposing 
even that I took your conscience from you, 
and no trace of repentance or remembrance 
were ever to afflict you again, would you 
strike the bargain without scruple ? Would 
you plunge into the scene as into your native 



100 WOT TON RE INF RED. 

element ? Would you hasten to it as to the 
bosom of a mother ? Would there be no 
whisper of gainsaying ? " 

'' Perhaps some whisper ; but — " 

'' That little whisper saves us ! " cried Mau- 
rice. 

'' It was the voice of your better genius ! " 
cried Dalbrook. 

'' Perhaps only of my vanity," said Will- 
iams. '' I might not like to be degrad- 
ed." 

" The voice at least of something which 
was not love of pleasure ; something which 
the philosopher and I reckon higher, and 
which you yourself must admit to be differ- 
ent," said Maurice. 

" O good Heavens ! " cried Dalbrook. 
'■'- Quoiisque venimus ? Does it require proof 
that there is something better in man than 
self-interest, however prudent and clear-sight- 
ed ; that the divine law of virtue is not a 
drudge's bargain, and her beauty and omnipo- 
tent majesty an * association,' a shadow, the 
fable of a nurse ? O Prodicus ! Was thy 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. iqi 

*■ Choice of Hercules ' written to shame us ; 
that after twenty centuries of ' perfectibil- 
ity ' are here still arguing ? Do you know, 
sirs," added he, in a lower tone, '' this 
doctrine is the curse of Europe in our gen- 
eration ; the bane of all true greatness ; the 
root of sensuality, cruelty, and Atheism ? 
It was the creed of Rome under Nero and 
Caligula, when the human race seemed lost ; 
lost, thank God, it was not, and will not 
be!" 

" But on what motive do we act then, or 
can we act virtuously?" said the atrabiliar, 
with impatience. 

*' Possibly on no utotive at all, in that sense 
of the word motive," answered Dalbrook. 
" One of the wisest men now living has told 
us, as applied to art, * Of what is wrong we 
are always conscious ; of what is right, never.' 
The virtue we are conscious of is no right 
virtue. But, come," added he, " Williams is 
smiling incredulous, Frank is suspending me 
7iaso adtmco, our young friends are wearied. I 
move that we exchange our wine for coffee, 



\ 



I02 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

and the thorns of philosophy for the roses of 
beauty." 

" One of the wisest things you have 
said," cried Williams. " Will you lead the 
way ? " 



CHAPTER V. 

Before parting for the night it had been 
settled that our travellers were not to depart 
the next day, or the next ; an arrangement to 
which, entreated as they were by such friend- 
ly hosts, and tempted by so many fair entice- 
ments, they had consented without difficulty. 
Bernard in particular was charmed with the 
valley and its inmates, and eager to penetrate 
still farther into the secrets and affections of 
so singular and gifted a household ; of whom, 
as was his way, he felt ready to believe all 
good. Wotton, again, with less hope of the 
adventure, had perhaps still deeper curiosity 
respecting it. On retiring to his room he 
could not but wonder in contrasting his pres- 
ent mood-with the mood of j^esternight. An 
unusual, almost painful, excitement had stirred 
up -many latent energies, crowds of confused 



104 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

images and all manner of obscure anticipa- 
tions and ideas were whirling through his 
mind, the very basis of which had been as- 
sailed and shaken ; while the gorgeous scenery, 
as of a new world of thought which he had 
only beheld in brief dreams, seemed now to 
advance before him in living reality. The fig- 
ures of the past, the present, and future were 
tumultuously mingled in his head till sleep 
sank over him like an ambrosial cloud, and 
hid him within dreamy curtains from his cares. 

Next morning he was on the hills with 
Williams. The rosy precincts of the House 
in the Wold were out of sight, and the two 
were pretending to botanise. We say pre- 
tending, for neither of them were intent on 
the matter ; to Wotton, at least, the science of 
botany was uninteresting, indeed, unknown, 
or known only as a tedious beadroU of names. 
Williams, however, was a mineralogist also, 
and a pleasant, lively man. 

*' The mountain air is pure," said he, ** and 
the brown hill-tops in their solitude are a 
pleasure to look on. We shall go by cliff and 



WOTTON REIN FRED, 105 

tarn, and ' interrogate Nature ' as well as any 
of them. Oh," continued he, '' does it not do 
your heart good to think of Nature being 
interrogated ? To see some innocent little 
whipster, with a couple of crucibles, and pith- 
balls, and other like small gear, setting forth 
in such gaiety of spirit to cross-question Na- 
ture. By heaven ! I think Nature must be 
the queen of dolts if she don't bamboozle 
him ! " 

" The Book of Nature," said Wotton, '' is 
written in such strange intertwisted charac- 
ters, that you may spell from among them a 
few words in any alphabet, but to read the 
whole is for omniscience alone." 

'' So each walks by his own hornbook," 
said the other ; '' and whatever contradicts 
the hornbook is no letter but a flourish. As 
the fool thinks, the bell clinks, our adage says ; 
and so it is here as well as elsewhere." 

However, it was not to interrogate Nature 
that Wotton chiefly wanted ; but, rather, to 
interrogate his new acquaintance on matters 
nearer home. 



I06 WOT TON REINFRED. 

" I may confess to you," said he, " I am in 
no scientific mood at present. The sudden 
chang-e of my scene confuses so young a trav- 
eller ; indeed, this House of the Wold is still 
a riddle to me ; and of much that I saw and 
heard last night, I knew not and yet know not 
what to make. Will you give me a little 
light, for I am wandering in dark labyrinths ? 
Among all our philosophers there was none 
whom I so well understood and sympathised 
with as yourself. Can you explain to me what 
manner of persons I am got amxong, that so 
kindly welcome me, and instruct me in such 
wondrous doctrine ? " 

" Willingly," cried his companion, '* so far 
as may be ; but I myself am only a purblind 
guide, so have a care that we do not both fall 
into the ditch. You say truly, this House in 
the Wold is a riddle ; we are altogether a sur- 
prising household, varying from week to week 
as visitors arrive and go, yet still differing 
from all other earthly households. Come 
when you will, you shall find a circle of origi- 
nals assembled here ; the strangest mortals 



WOT TON RE IN FRED, 107 

with the strangest purposes, attracted as by 
magnetic virtue to the place ; in figuration 
still you might think Proteus was returned to 
the world, and had driven all his flock to visit 
the lofty mountains, as in the era of Deuca- 
lion. Artists, poets, sciolists, sages, men of 
science, men of letters, politicians, statesmen, 
pedagogues, all find place ; one only condition 
is required, so far as I can see : that the man 
be something, and this something with a cer- 
tain honesty of mind ; for knaves and scoun- 
drels of the most amusing cast I have known 
ere now packed off decisively enough. 

" But to particulars ! And first o* the first. 
Our noble hosts are persons whom, however 
we may wonder at, no one that knows them 
can speak of without reverence. Maurice Her- 
bert is by possession and descent the sover- 
eign of this quarter of the mountains ; a man 
naturally of talent, generosity, and resolution, 
whom a life of various activity, not unmixed 
with suffering, has moulded into a character 
of singular composure and humanity. You 
will find him well and universally informed ; 



I08 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

polished by intercourse with court and camp ; 
for he has seen the world under both these 
aspects ; indeed, his natural endowments and 
connections seemed to appoint him as if from 
birth for public life ; but his philosophic 
tastes, joined to a certain almost haughty in- 
flexibility of spirit, and also, I believe, to some 
cruel domestic afflictions, soon drove him back 
into retirement. His lady and he have been 
wedded some twenty years, most part of 
which they have passed in this valley. They 
have no children ; at least they are now child- 
less ; though thereby hangs some secret, for a 
tale goes of one child having been mysteri- 
ously stolen from them while abroad ; but on 
this subject you shall never hear them speak, 
nor is it safe to question them. For the pres- 
ent they may be said to live, or, at least, to 
endeavour to live, in the element of intellect 
and well-doing ; their hospitable house is open 
to all good men ; persons of culture, and still 
more of any worthy purpose or decided ca- 
pacity, they study to attract and forward by 
all kind appliances, of which, with such ample 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 109 

means, there are many in their power. With 
the neighbouring gentry, all this passes for 
quixotic or even hypocritical ; nor will I deny, 
such is the imperfection of human things, that 
a certain spicing of vainglory mingles with so 
much benevolence ; but who would quarrel 
with goodness because it is not perfection ? 
If Maurice Herbert cannot claim the praise 
of charity and active public spirit, there are 
few men in England who w^ill deserve it. Far 
and wide he goes and sends and gives in fur- 
therance of all improvement and useful enter- 
prise ; making this, indeed, his occupation, the 
chosen business of his life. To-day, for in- 
stance, he is out with your friend Bernard ; 
if I mistook not, there was something in the 
wind. It is true, there can no Utopia be real- 
ised on earth, and many a time the pure ele- 
ment in which a man like Maurice moves and 
works, will be polluted by baser admixtures ; 
but for constancy of generous endeavour, nay, 
I may add for real importance of result, his 
manner of existence is to be applauded and 
prized." 



no WOTTOKT REIN FRED. 

" But does he believe in Dalbrook's mysti- 
cism ? " inquired Wotton. 

^' That he believes I should somewhat 
doubt, though he constantly defends it. But 
he has a love for all high things, and no dark- 
ness or exaggeration can utterly destroy his 
favour for them. What his own opinions are 
you will find it difficult to learn, for he sel- 
dom contradicts and never dogmatises, having 
boundless tolerance for honest speculation, 
and being himself singularly uncontrollable 
in thought as well as purpose. Indeed, the 
grand feature of his mind and conduct is 
this same vigour of will ; for meek as you 
will always see him, Maurice is an auto- 
crat over himself ; whatever lies within his 
sphere must be mastered, cost what it may. 
It is thus that he has retired from the 
world of politics and fashion to a world of 
his own. In morals, also, he is a sort of 
Stoic, and naturally, for he enjoys little hap- 
piness and hopes little — at least, so in spite 
of his equanimity, I have many times sus- 
pected. To such a mind that subtle doc- 



WOT TON REINFRED, m 

trine of the stiinmum bonum may not be so 
foreign." 

'^ A goodly gentleman," said Wotton, "j^ou 
have shown me, and one whom it were a pride 
and pleasure to belong to. But now what of 
this philosopher, this mystic Dalbrook ? Am 
I to think him fatuous or inspired ? What 
with his truth and happiness, what with his 
understanding and his reason, my wits are al- 
together muddled." 

"I cannot wonder," said Williams, "the 
man does generally pass for mad, and some- 
times I fear he will infect us all. For really, 
if you watch him, there is curious method in 
his madness, and that huge whirlpool of a 
mind, with its thousand eddies and unfathom- 
able caverns, is a kind of mahlstrom you were 
better not to look on lest it swallowed you, 
unless, indeed, you first cast anchor at a safe 
distance, which I have now learned to do. 
Good heavens, how he talks ! The whole day 
long, if you do not check him, he will pour 
forth floods of speech, and the richest, noblest 
speech, only that you find no purpose, tend- 



112 WOT TON REINFRED. 

ency, or meaning in it ! A universal hubbub, 
wild it seems to you, with touches of seraphic 
melody flitting through the boundless, aimless 
din of anarchy itself. 

" On the whole, I will confess to you, I can- 
not rightly understand this Dalbrook. Ab- 
surdities innumerable I might laugh at in him, 
but I see not rightly how his folly is related 
to his wisdom. Such discord may in part be 
harmony not understood. He is undoubtedly 
a man of w^onderful gifts, acquirements almost 
universal, of generous feelings, too ; on the 
whole a splendid nature, yet strangely out of 
union with itself, and so alloyed with incon- 
sistencies that in action it is good for nothing, 
and with its vast bulk revolves rather than 
advances. His very speech displays imbe- 
cility of will ; he does not talk with you but 
preaches to you ; his thoughts are master of 
him, not he of them. Accordingly, with all 
his fine endowments he has effected little, 
scarcely even the first problem of philosophy, 
an independent living. Maurice loves and 
honours him, else matters would go hard. In 



WOT TON REINFRED. n^ 

fact, the man has an unspeakable aversion to 
pain in all shapes, and among the rest to la- 
bour ; this, I take it, is the secret of his char- 
acter. With the loftiest idea of what is to be 
done, he does and feels that he can do noth- 
ing ; hence a dreary contradiction in his life, 
a constant self-reproach, and to help himself 
he only talks the more. In this v/ay I inter- 
pret his exaggerated schemes of virtue, his 
misty generalities in science, the whole dreamy 
world where his mind so likes to live. Poor 
Dalbrook! He was made to be a Brahman 
or a Gnostic, and he found himself an unap- 
pointed English scholar, and the task of living 
would not prosper with him. Much he talks 
of writing and teaching, and day after day he 
reads all manner of supernatural metaphysics 
and the like ; but what will it come to ? And 
yet it is a thousand pities, for there is finest 
gold in him if it could be parted from the 
dross." 

" How does his practice correspond with 
his stoical theories of virtue and happiness ? " 
inquired Wotton. 



114 WOTTON REINFRED. 

** Indifferently," answered Williams ; " idle- 
ness is no propitious soil for virtue, and, as we 
have seen, he cannot work. With all his gen- 
erous humanity in the gross, you shall often 
find him spiteful and selfish in detail. Mean 
men have obtained preferment, and he is un- 
preferred ; then while he despises them, he 
cannot help half envying. The world has 
used him ill, and he has no stronghold of his 
own where he might abide its shocks in peace, 
nay, love it, pitiful as it is ; but wages a sort 
of Bedouin warfare with its arrangements ; an 
employment in which no one can appear to 
advantage. Yet certainly he wishes to do 
well ; and his sins are of omission not commis- 
sion. Let us pity the good philosopher ! He 
was made for a better world than ours, and 
only in the Heaven, where he looks to arrive, 
can his fine spirit be itself. 

" But now," continued he, " I must speak 
of Burridge whom you poisoned last night 
with arsenic. Frank, in spite of his atrabiliar 
philosophy, is no bad fellow ; his liver, I be- 
lieve, is wrong, but his heart is not. A man 



WOT TON RE IN FRED, 115 

of birth and wealth, with sense enough to see 
what is wrong, but scarcely what is right, sits 
in Parliament legislating after the manner of 
an English squire ; hunts at home or abroad 
when he is not voting; believes in Hume; 
curses the badness of the weather, the villainy 
of men, the derangement of the universe at 
large; yet, strange enough, feels withal that 
he must vote with ministers, and Church and 
State be supported ; both are false, but bad 
might be worse. A Manichean I might call 
him, or rather an Arimasian, for in theory his 
sole God is the devil, since he worships noth- 
ing but necessity ; yet such are the contradic- 
tions of human nature, you shall meet few 
better men than this same Burridge with the 
basest creed ; just, frank, true-hearted to a 
proverb, nay, as occasion offers, generous if 
not benevolent, his life puts to shame many 
high-sounding professors, and shows what 
metal there must be in English character that 
can resist such calcination, and still be metal. 
Frank is a contradiction ; he piques you into 
loving him." 



Il6 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

" Maurice called him cousin," said Wotton. 

'' They are related, I believe, but chiefly 
by old acquaintance, nay, on Frank's side, I 
might almost say discipleship ; he reverences 
Maurice, asks his counsel, and in all domestic 
arrangements walks by his light. Every sum- 
mer he is here with his household ; his son, 
the Huchesonian philosopher, you saw last 
night ; his lady and his nephew are expected 
to-morrow ; they are on a visit in the neigh- 
bourhood, whither Frank would not attend 
them. You will mark his nephew, a fellow of 
some substance, for good or evil, I know too 
little of him to say for which." 

" Is he a scholar too? " 

"Oh, nowise," said the other; "a man of 
action this, bred among drums, gunpowder, 
fire, tempest, and warfare ; he is a soldier, 
every inch a soldier, has fought and stormed 
across the world, and is now resting with his 
medals and his laurels and the rank of major, 
and fair prospects every way. He is heir ap- 
parent to our landlord, I believe, though 
Maurice does not seem to like him over much, 



WOT TON REIN FRED. ny 

a thing I hardly blame him for, but you your- 
self shall judge." 

''And his aunt?" inquired Wotton. 

''A faded dame of quality, who will not recol- 
lect that autumn is no summer. She has been 
fascinating once, nay, is so still, for she is lively, 
clever, and by help of the toilette even pretty. 
She has some real virtues, and many graces ; 
but if old age overtake her, as is like it must, 
she will surely go distracted, unless, indeed, 
she take to saintship or bliiisin which is worse." 

*' You are no friend to Blues, then ? " 

" I profess a kind of enmity to cant, wher- 
ever I may find it, but on the whole I think 
the poor Blues have hard measure among us." 

'* We forgive the fashionable woman many 
follies while she courts distinction in the 
sphere of common vanity ; why should we 
refuse a similar tolerance to folly in the 
sphere of literature ? The motive is the same 
in both cases, self-conceit, and undue love of 
praise, while the means in the latter case are 
often the more innocent." 

*' After all," said Williams, '' cant is the 



Il8 WOT TEN REIN FRED. 

great cosmetic and enamel of existence, the 
cheap and sovereign alchemy for making 
crooked things straight and rough places 
plain ; why should I quarrel with it, I that 
need it so much myself, nay, so many times 
am forced to use it? " 

'' You ? " said Wotton ; " surely of all the 
men I have ever met with, you seem the most 
free from cant." 

" Ah ! how little you know of it," replied 
the other ; " few can avow distinctly to them- 
selves what they are aiming at, can weigh in 
a fair balance the worthlessness of their whole 
craft and mystery, and see without blinking 
v^^hat pitiful knaves they are. It goes against 
the grain with one to feel that with incessant 
bustle, he is doing nothing but digest his 
victuals ! Man}^ a time when I leave our 
chancery court, and find three bushels of 
briefs piled up on my table, I say to myself : 
* Well, Jack, thou art a man useful in thy day 
and generation, here is much gall peaceably 
evaporated, much Avrong prevented ; law is a 
noble science ! ' instead of saying : * Well, 



WOTTON REINFRED. hq 

Jack, thou art a man lucky in thy day and 
generation, here is much corn and wine con- 
verted into ink, much right delayed, law is a 
sleek milk-cow whence thou hast thy living.* 
And so it is with most trades that men trade 
in under the sun. If you viewed them with- 
out magnifiers you would find that the result 
was much the same. Life^is a hug;e treadmill, 
if you don't step forward they trample you to 
jelly, and if you do step forward for a century, 
you are exactly where you started. Good 
Cant ! Now she tells us this is a journey to- 
wards a noble goal with prospects of this and 
that on the right and left ; it is a journey as I 
tell. you. Long life to Cant! if it were not 
she, we might hang and drown ourselves, 
and with her one can live in surprising com- 
fort." 

The conversation of his new acquaintance 
could not but amuse our hero, however little 
it might satisfy him. 

To be spoken to with such attention, and 
so confidentially treated by a man of influence 
and talent was in itself gratifying, and still 



I20 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

more so by its rarity in Wotton's previous 
experience ; for it was seldom that his hap 
had led in the way of such people, and much 
seldomer that he had found them so divested 
of vanity as to give their minds free play and 
forget in his presence that he being little and 
they being great, it behoved them to trample 
on him, or at least to astonish and overawe 
him. Williams was none of those painful per- 
sons ; he cared too little about anything on 
earth to vex himself or others for it ; the basis 
of his philosophy was : Live and let live. 
With a gay kind guileless heart, and the clear- 
est and sprightliest perceptions, he was the 
most attractive of all unbelievers. Intelli- 
gence and courteous pleasantry sparkled in 
his eyes; he was of quick sensation, yet not 
irritable, never deliberately vindictive ; for 
nature had so blandly tempered him, that he 
could wish no injury to any living thing. 
Without effort, he habitually forgot self and 
the little concerns of self, and mingled with 
trustful entireness in the feelings of the place 
and hour, even while his judgment despised 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 121 

them. Nothing' could be kindlier than his con- 
tempt, which indeed extended far and wide, 
embracing with a few momentary exceptions 
the whole actions and character of man, his 
own not excluded, nay rather placed in the 
foremost rank of pettiness. For moral good- 
ness and poetical beauty, save only as pleasur- 
able sensations, he had no name ; yet few men 
had a keener feeling or a better practical re- 
gard for both ; he was merciful and generous, 
he knew not why ; and a great character, a 
fine action, a sublime image or thought struck 
through his inmost being, and for an instant 
gleaming in every feature with ethereal light, 
the gay sceptic had become a worshipper and 
a rapt enthusiast. These, however, were but 
momentary glows, reflexes of a strange glory 
from a world which he had never dwelt in, 
which he knew not, and soon lost in the ele- 
ment of quiet kindly derision and denial where 
he lived and moved. They consorted ill with 
his philosophy of life, and might have made 
him doubt it, had he taken time to search it to 
the bottom ; but time was wanting in his busy 



122 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

Sphere; jostling for ever among selfish men 
and their pursuits, he believed as they be- 
lieved, and such contradictions pleasant or 
painful with which his own kinder nature now 
and then warned him of his error he heeded 
little, or loosely referred to that unknown 
infinitude which encircles all human under- 
standing, mocking it with phantasms and in- 
scrutable paradoxes which, thought Williams, 
he is wisest who heeds least. In this way had 
the man grown up to middle age, the light 
and not unlovely product of benignant nature 
striving with perverted culture, professedly a 
sceptic, unconsciously a believer and bene- 
factor : all men wished him well, and if more 
serious critics missed in Williams any earnest- 
ness and true manliness of purpose, they too 
were often captivated in his gay fascinations, 
and forced to prize him as a thing if not as a 
man, and to like if they could not love him. 

In manifold narration and discussion the 
hours passed swiftly on, till without singular 
advancement to the science either of botany 
or mineralogy, but with the consciousness of 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 123 

having spent a pleasant day, our two friends 
found themselves again descending into their 
hospitable valley, under some fear of being 
stayed for by their company. Burridge had 
caught several wonder-worthy fishes ; his son 
had been listening to Dalbrook lecturing un- 
der the elm-rows and shady garden-walks, as 
in the groves of a new Academe ; Bernard 
and Maurice were returned from a visit in 
some neighbouring valley. All seemed con- 
tented with their morning's work ; the Lady 
Dorothy with her two fair secretaries, studi- 
ous like her of household good, found that 
they had laboured for no unthankful guests. 

On this occasion, it was moved and agreed 
that the party should withdraw with their 
wine and coffee to the garden-house, not quit- 
ting the dames, whose harps and melodious 
voices were to heighten and as it were vivify 
with music the other charms of a scene and 
evening so lovely. Embowered in the richest 
foliage, in front of them the fair alternation of 
lawn and thicket, of bush and fruit-tree, and 
m-any-coloured fiower-bed, stretching far and 



124 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

wide, cut with long winding walks, in mellow 
light, and silent, save when from his green 
spray the thrush or blackbird was pouring his 
gushes of harmony in many a linked bout, 
around them towering clusters of roses, and 
the hues and odours of a thousand flowers, and 
beyond all, in the remote distance, the slopes 
and peaks of the mountains sparkling in the 
glow of evening, our friends were soon socia- 
bly seated in their little garden-house, the 
front of which had been thrown open to admit 
so many kindly influences. 

In such hours, when all is invitation to 
peace and gladness, the soul expands with full 
freedom, man feels himself brought nearer to 
man, and the narrowest hypochondriac is 
charmed from his selfish seclusion and sur- 
prised by the pleasure of unwonted sympathy 
with nature and his brethren. Gaily in light 
graceful abandonment and touches of careless 
felicity, the friendly talk played round the 
table ; each said what he liked without fear 
that others might dislike it, for the burden 
was rolled from every heart ; the barriers of 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. 125 

ceremony, which are indeed the laws of polite 

living, melted into vapour, and the poor claims 

of me and thee, no longer parted and enclosed 

by rigid lines, flowed softly into each other ; 

and life lay like some fair unappropriated 

champaign, variegated indeed with many tints, 

but all these mingling by gentle undulations, 

by imperceptible shadings, and all combining 

into one harmonious whole. Such virtue has 

a kind environment of circumstances over 

cultivated hearts. And yet as the light grev/ 

yellower and purer on the mountain tops, and 

the shadows of these stately scattered trees 

fell longer over the valley, some faint tone of 

sadness may have breathed through the heart, 

and in whispers more or less audible reminded 

every one by natural similitude, that as this 

bright day was coming towards its close, so 

also m.ust the day of man's existence decline 

into dusk and darkness, and the night come, 

wherein all image of its joy and woe would 

pass awa}^ and be forgotten. 

In the fair Anna at least, we cannot but 

suspect the presence of some such intrusive 
9 



126 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

thought, for by degrees she had withdrawn 
her contribution, nay her interest from the 
conversation ; her look, still and pensive, was 
lost in the remote landscape ; it seemed as if 
in the long eyelashes a tear were trembling. 
It was her turn to sing ; she started from her 
reverie, flung her hand hastily over the harp- 
strings, and after short preluding in a melody 
half longing and plaintive, half sad and con- 
temptuous, thus began : 

What is Hope ? A golden rainbow, etc. 

All listened with attention, and still for a 
few instants after the music ceased there was 
silence, while the fair singer, glancing rapidly 
between tears and smiles over the company, 
then hung down her head, and seemed busy 
rectifying some error with her strings. 

" Surely, my good Anne," said Williams, 
" you mean not as you sing ; these dismal 
quatrains are fitter for a lykewake than to 
greet so fair a banquet, amid sunshine and 
roses, and plenty of brave young gallants to 
boot ! " 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 127 

" Women go by the rule of contraries," 
answered the lady, with a smile, but rather 
of concealment than of gladness. " Do you 
know," added she, " I have work within doors, 
and must beg the fair banquet's pardon, sun- 
shine and roses and brave gallants, young or 
old, notwithstanding. My blessing with you 
all ! " cried she, tripping through the bushes 
towards the house, and making signs that she 
was not to be followed. 

" A strange young lady," said Burridge, 
"and more full of crotchets than ever." 

" But did you like her song ? " inquired 
Dorothy. " Was it not in the spirit of your 
own bitter creed, cousin ? Why the rhymer 
may have meant not ill ; the spirit as you say 
was willing but the flesh was weak. There is 
no pith in this balladmonger ; his v/ires are 
slack and have a husky jingle. Besides, I 
doubt he is an imitator." 

" Neither is the spirit of his verse unex- 
ceptionable," said Williams. '' His is a con- 
clusion in which nothing emphatically is con- 
cluded, save perhaps our old friend the bag 



128 WOTTON REINFRED. 

of arsenic, Frank ! Really one tires of your 
death's head when it grins at one too long. 
This sweet singer, as you hint, is but a faint 
echo of Lord Byron." 

" Say rather of the general tone of our 
time," observed Maurice. " Lord Byron was 
the loudest harper, but not the first or the 
best of this arsenical school. The keynote was 
struck in Goethe's Werther, and Europe has 
rung ever since with the tune and its vari- 
ations." 

** It is the want of the age," said Wotton. 
" Thousands on thousands feel as Byron felt ; 
and his passionate voicing of emotions hitherto 
shapeless and crushing with a force vague 
and invisible v/as a relief to the heart that 
could not speak them. He was a spirit of 
Heaven, though cast down into the abyss ; 
and his song, like that singing of the fallen 
seraphs, 

' was partial, but the harmony 
(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing ?) 
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment 
The thronging audience,' " 



WOTTON REIN FRED. 129 

*' An apt enough allusion," said Maurice, 
" for the unbelief of men, their sickly sensi- 
tiveness and vociferous craving for enjoyment, 
have made the world a sort of hell for every 
noble nature that is not delivered from the 
baleful greed of the day. Our longing is to- 
wards the Infinite and Invisible : but for these 
our time has no symbol ; nay, rather it denies 
their existence ; substituting in their stead the 
shadows and reflections of a merely sensual 
and mechanic philosophy ; and thus the high- 
est faculties of the spirit are shut up in pain- 
ful durance, or directed into false activit}^ ; 
thought cannot be converted into deed ; what 
should have been worship and blessing be- 
comes idolatry and malediction ; for Self is a 
false God, and his rites are cruel, and end in 
the destruction of his votaries." 

** Moloch and Juggernaut," said Dalbrook, 
*' could but kill the body ; but this, with long 
doleful agonies, or worse, v/ith craftier opiate 
poisons, kills the soul." 

"• But surely," said Dorothy, " there is a 
truer poetry possible even for us than this 



130 WOTTON RE IN FRED. 

frightful sort, which is built not on love but 
on hatred, and for all the wounds of humanity 
acknowledges no balm but pride." 

" Which is a caustic, and no balm ; may 
corrode but cannot cure," added Bernard. 

" O call not by the name of poetry," cried 
Dalbrook, " such fierce disharmony, which is 
but infuriated not inspired ! The essence of 
poetry is love and peace, but here is only rage 
and disdain. Is the poet gifted with a finer 
sense only to feel with double anguish the 
stings of pain? Was his creative faculty be- 
stowed on him to image forth and falsely 
ornament deformity and contradiction ? Is it 
he that should mistake the discords of the 
poor imperfect part for the diapason of the 
glorious all, and hear no fairer music in this 
symphony of the creation than the echoes of 
his own complaining ? must he hover through 
existence, not like a bird of paradise, feeding 
on flowers, nay sleeping with outstretched 
wings in middle air, but like a hungry vulture, 
searching for the carrion of selfish pleasure, 
and shrieking with baleful cry when he does 



WOT TON REINFRED, 131 

not find it? Shame on us! When the very 
high priests in this solemn temple of the uni- 
verse have become blasphemers, when they 
deny their God, and love not the worship but 
the incense ! " 

" Bravely said, philosopher ! '* cried Bur- 
ridge. " With your rhetoric you might per- 
suade one that black was white ; but we must 
not let your figures of speech mislead us. If 
people do feel in pain, and vexed with these 
same discords, how can they help it, and help 
complaining of it ? What is your glorious all 
which lies far enough away, when a man has 
got a scurvy fraction for his own whole allot- 
ment, and can draw from it neither sense nor 
profit, but only trouble and grief for his life 
long ? Was it the poor soul's own blame that 
he came no better off ; or must he be denied 
the small privilege of complaining? And is 
he not obliged to the poet, who utters for him 
in soul-subduing melodies, a feeling which in 
his own mouth would have sounded harsh 
and trivial ? " 

*' If untrue, it could not sound too harsh 



132 WOT TON RE IN FRED, 

or be too little heeded/* observed Mau- 
rice. 

*' Nay, but true or untrue/* cried Williams, 
" it is the general feeling of mankind at pres- 
ent, and will express itself in spite of us. 
Now the poet is a citizen of his age as well as 
of his countr3^ It is his proper nature to feel 
with double force all that other men feel, as 
to give this back with double force, ennobled 
and transfigured into beauty, is his proper 
business," 

"There are many things men feel," said 
Maurice, " which he should suppress and war 
against, for he has no alchemy which can so 
transfigure them. If his age is worthless and 
sunk, he must make for himself another; let 
him strive to change his degraded brethren 
into his noble likeness, not deface himself into 
theirs." 

" But the means," said Williams. 

" By deep worship of truth and a generous 
scorn of falsehood, however popular and pat- 
ronised. Let no momentary show of things 
divert him from their essence. Let him not 



WOT TON REIN FRED, 133 

look to the idols of the time, but to the pure 
ideal of his own spirit ; let him listen not to 
the clamours and contradictions from with- 
out, but to the harmonious unison from 
within." 

'' And how v/ill the time relish this ? *' said 
Burridge. 

" Badly, it may be," answered Maurice, 
** but all hope is not therefore lost. Fit au- 
dience he will find though fev/, let him speak 
where he will ; and if his words are sure and 
well-ordered they will last from age to age, 
and the hearing ear and the understanding 
heart will not be wanting. Cast thy bread upon 
the water Sy thou shalt find it after many days ! 
So it is with true poetry and all good and 
noble things. The wheat is sown amid au- 
tumnal vapours, and lies long buried under 
snow, yet the field waves yellow in summer, 
and the reaper goes down to it rejoicing." 

**Then it is not the poet's chief end to 
please?'* said Wotton. 

" His means not his end," replied Maurice; 
" on the whole, in art as in morals, it seems to 



134 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

me, we must guard ourselves against the love 
of pleasure, which admitted as a first principle 
may lead us in both cases far astray (at all 
events please man not the man. Popularity, 
etc.) The first poets were teachers and seers ; 
the gifted soul, instinct with music, discerned 
the true and beautiful in nature, and poured 
its bursting fulness in floods of harmony, en- 
trancing the rude sense of men ; and song was 
a heavenly voice bearing wisdom irresistibly 
with chaste blandishments into every heart." 

" But what of Homer, or Shakespeare ? " 
cried Burridge. " Methinks their science was 
of the meagrest ; what did they teach us ? " 

" Much, much," answered Maurice, " that 
we have not yet rightly learned. They 
taught us to know this world, cousin, and yet 
to love it; a harder science, cousin, and a 
more precious than any chemistry or physics 
or political economy that we have studied 
since. Look with their eyes on man and life ! 
All its hollowness, and insufficiency, and sin 
and woe are there ; but with them, nay by 
them, do beauty and mercy and a solemn 



WOTTON REIN FRED. 135 

grandeur shine forth, and man with his stinted 
and painful existence is no longer little or 
poor, but lovely and venerable ; for a glory of 
Infinitude is round him ; and it is by his very 
poverty that he is rich, and by his littleness 
that he is great." 

" I have heard the poet's spirit likened to 
an Eolian harp," said Dorothy, " over which 
the common winds of this world cannot pass 
but they are modulated into music, and even 
their anger and their moaning become kindly 
and melodious." 

'* Yes," cried Dalbrook, " there dwells in 
him a divine harmony, which needs but to be 
struck that it be awakened. His spirit is a 
spirit of goodness and brotherhood ; anger, 
hatred, malignity may not abide with him, will 
not consort with his purer nature. Where- 
fore should he envy ; where shall he find one 
richer than he? While the vulgar soul, iso- 
lated in self, stinted and ignoble alike in its 
joy and woe, must build its narrow home on 
the sand of accident, and taste no good but 
what the winds and waves of accident may 



136 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

bring it, the poet's home is on the everlasting 
rock of necessity, the law which was before 
the universe, and will endure after the uni- 
verse has passed away ; and his eye and his 
mind range free and fearless through the world 
as through his own possession, his own fruitful 
field ; for he is reconciled with destiny, and in 
his benignant fellow-feeling all men are his 
brethren. Nay, are not time and space his 
heritage, and the beauty that is in them do 
they not disclose it to him and pay it as their 
tribute? What do I say? The beauty that 
is in them ! The beauty that shines through 
them ! For time and space are modes not 
things ; forms of our mind, not existences 
without us ; the shapes in which the un- 
seen bodies itself forth to our mortal sense ; 
if we were not, they also would cease to 
be." 

** God help us ! whither are we going 
now?" cried Burridge. 

" It is in this unseen," hastily continued 
Dalbrook, " that the poet lives and has his be- 
ing. Yes, he is a seer, for to him the invisible 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. 137 

glory has been revealed. Life with its prizes 
and its failures, its tumult and its jarring din, 
were a poor matter in itself ; to him it is base- 
less, transient and hollow, an infant's dream ; 
but beautiful also, and solemn and of myste- 
rious significance. Why should he not love it 
and reverence it? Is not all visible nature, all 
sensible existence the symbol and vesture of 
the Invisible and Infinite ? Is it not in these 
material shows of things that God, virtue, im- 
mortality are shadowed forth and made mani- 
fest to man? Material nature is as a Fata-mor- 
gana, hanging in the air ; a cloud-picture, but 
painted by the heavenly light; in itself it is 
air and nothingness, but behind it is the glory 
of the sun. Blind men ! they think the cloud- 
city a continuing habitation, and the sun but a 
picture because their eyes do not behold him. 
It is only the invisible that really is, but only 
the gifted sense that can of itself discern this 
reality ! " 

" Now, in Heaven's name," cried Burridge, 
" what is all this ? Must a poet become a mys- 
tic, and study Kant before he can write verses? 



138 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

I declare, philosopher, you are like to turn 
one's brain." 

Dalbrook only smiled and shook his head, 
but Maurice answered : " Nay, cousin, let us 
abide by things, and beware of names, above 
all of nicknames, which are mint-stamps, not 
metal, and should make brass and pewter pass 
for gold and silver not among the wise few 
but among the simple many. Much of this 
which you call Kantism seems but the more 
scientific expression of what all true poets and 
thinkers, nay, all good men, have felt more or 
less distinctly, and acted on the faith of,, in all 
ages. Depend on it, there are many things 
in heaven and earth which you believe in, 
though you can neither see them, nor make 
a picture of them in your head. What is 
all religion, but a worship of the Unseen, 
nay, the Invisible ? Superstition gives its 
God a shape, sometimes in marble or on 
canvas, oftener in the imagination ; but re- 
ligion tells us that with Him, form and du- 
ration are not ; for He is the same yester- 
day, to-day, and for ever. Time is an eter- 



\ 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 139 

nal now, and no eye hath seen Him nor can 
see." 

Burridge shook his head. ''Ah, Frank, you 
are a heretic in understanding, and if your 
heart did not know better, I really think we 
should have you burnt by the first Auto da Fe. 
But tell me v/hy do you fight duels ? No, it 
is not out of disgrace or fear, for you would 
let yourself be shot equally in the Island of 
Juan Fernandez, nay, in another planet, if need 
were, and though you were never more to see 
a human face ; but it is because you also w^or- 
ship the spirit of honour, which is your invisi- 
ble deity, before which all other feelings, all 
earthly joy and pain fly away like light dust 
before the whirlwind. Thus you too believe 
in the reality of the invisible, nay, in its chief 
or sole reality ; yes, you and all of us, else 
were we machines not men ; more cunningly 
devised steam-engines, to manufacture and to 
be impelled ; not reasonable souls, to make 
and to will." 

"But what has this to do with poetry?" 
said Williams. 



140 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

" In our view it has much to do with moral 
goodness," answered Maurice, " and therefore 
with the poet who is the interpreter and shad- 
ower forth of goodness. Except on some such 
principle, consciously or, it may be, uncon- 
sciously adopted, I see not how he is to find 
firm footing ; for it is only by a sense of the 
invisible that we can clearly understand the 
visible, that we learn to tolerate it, nay, to love 
it and see its worth amid its worthlessness." 

" These are hard sayings," rejoined the 
other, archly : " Who can understand them ? 
I question but that blackbird that sits on the 
hawthorn-tree, singing its carol in the red sun- 
light, is a better poet in its way than any of us." 

" The perfection of poets," answered Mau- 
rice, " would be a man as harmonious and 
complete in his reasonable being as that bird 
in its instinctive being." 

" The blackbird, at least, is born, not made,'' 
said Williams ; " is it not so also of the 
poet?" 

" Born and made were perhaps truer of the 
poet," answered Maurice. " Nature in her 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 141 

bounty gives him much, but her most pre- 
cious gift is the wish and aptitude to cultivate 
himself to become what he was capable of 
being." 

" Are not all men, while under strong ex- 
citement, poets ? " said the Oxonian. 

*' Scarcely," answered Burridge ; " the hen 
does but cackle when you excite her, she will 
not sing." 

" A false simile ! " cried the other. " The 
hen's cackling may be musical to hens ; for it 
is the law of nature that all living beings sym- 
pathise with beings organised like themselves. 
Human passion is poetical to men, and makes 
men poets. The rude Indian defies his fellow 
savage in gorgeous tropes, the peasant is a 
poet when he first sees the wonders of the 
city, a poet when he trembles at the moon- 
shiny churchyard, a poet when he goes to 
church in sunlight with his wedding company 
and his bride." 

" Umph ! " inarticulated Dalbrook. 

" Now the poet is simply always what 

these are only now and then," continued the 
10 



142 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

other, '' and his fine frenzy, when he utters it, 
is poetry." 

" Yet this frenzy, you observe, must be 
fine," said Wotton, *' and therein lies the puz- 
zle of the problem. The poet is an artist and 
does not sing from any Delphic tripod ; he 
has need of forethought as well as fury, and 
many times, I doubt, finds it no such smooth 
matter." 

" True, he is an artist," said the other ; 
" his mind is stored with imagery and beauti- 
ful remembrances ; these he unites, omitting 
what was trivial or repulsive in them, and 
thus is formed by degrees an ideal whole in 
his mind. When the painter would create his 
Venus, does he not borrow the eyes from this 
fair woman, the nose from that, the lips from 
another ; and uniting so many separate beau- 
ties, form them into one beauty, which is in- 
deed all taken from nature, yet to which na- 
ture has and can have no parallel ? " 

" When the mantua-maker would create a 
kettle-quilt," cried Williams, gaily, '' does she 
not borrow the patch of taffeta from this 



WOT TON REIN FRED, 143 

bright remnant, the lustring from that, the 
sarcenet from another, and so produce a kettle- 
quilt, which is indeed all taken from Spital- 
fields, yet to which all Spitalfields can show 
no parallel? I declare to you, my friend, I 
could never for an hour believe in this theory, 
though Akenside himself took it under his 
wing, nay, for aught I know first hatched it." 

" Why do we not in good earnest set up 
Gulliver's poetical turning-loom," said Wot- 
ton, '' and produce our poetry in Birmingham 
by steam?" 

'* It is surely a false theory," said Dal- 
brook, " but of a piece with other false me- 
chanical philosophy. All things must be ren- 
dered visible or they are not conceivable : 
poetry is an internal joiner-work, but what of 
that? Virtue itself is an association or per- 
haps a fluid in the nerves ; thought is some 
vibration, or at best some camera-obscura pict- 
uring in the brain ; volition is the mounting 
of a scale or the pressing of a spring ; and the 
mind is some balance, or engine, motionless of 
itself, till it be swayed this way and that by 



144 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

external things. Good Heavens! Surely if 
we have any soul there must be a kind of life 
in it ? Surely it does not hang passive and in- 
ert within us, but acts and works ; and if so, 
acts and works like an immaterial spirit on 
spiritual things, not like an artisan on matter. 
Surely it were good, then, even in our loosest 
contemplations, to admit some little mystery 
in the operating of a power by its nature so 
inscrutable. With our similitudes, we make 
the mind a passive engine, set in motion by 
the senses : as it were a sort of thought-mill 
to grind sensations into ideas, by which fig- 
ures also we conceive this grinding process to 
be very prettily explained. Nay, it is the 
same in our material physiology as in our 
mental ; animal life, like spiritual, you find is 
tacitly regarded as a quality, a susceptibility, 
the relation and result of other powers, not it- 
self the origin and fountain-head of all other 
powers ; but its force comes from without by 
palpable transmission, does not dwell mys- 
teriously within, and emanate mysteriously in 
wonder-working influences from within ; and 



WOTTON REINFRED. 145 

man himself is but a more cunning chemico- 
mechanical combination, such as in the prog- 
ress of discovery we may hope to see manu- 
factured at Soho. Nay, smile not incredu- 
lously, John Williams ! It is even as I say ; 
and thus runs the high-road to Atheism in 
religion, materialism in philosophy, utility in 
morals, and flaring, effect-seeking mannerism 
in Art. Art do I call it ? Let me not profane 
the name! Poetry is a making, a" creation," 
added he, " and the first rising up of a poem 
in the head of a poet is as inexplicable, by ma- 
terial formulas, as the first rising up of nature 
out of chaos." 

" I have often recollected the story of 
Phidias," said Wotton, " when in his exile he 
had retired to Elis, and, to punish his country, 
men, had resolved to make a Jupiter still 
grander than their Minerva. The thought he 
meant to express was present to him, all the 
strength and the repose, the kingly omnipo- 
tence of the Olympian ; but no visible form 
would it assume, no feature to body itself 
forth ; and the statuary wandered for days 



146 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

and weeks in the pain of an inward idea which 
would cast itself out in no external symbol. 
Once he was loitering at sunset among the 
groves, his heart sick in its baffled vehemence 
his head full, yet dark and formless ; when, at 
the opening of some avenue, a procession of 
maidens, returning from the fountain with 
their pitchers on their heads, suddenly uplift- 
ed the evening hymn to Jove ; and, in a mo- 
ment, the artist's head was overflowed with 
light, and the figure of his Jupiter started 
forth in all its lineaments before his mind, and 
stood there visible and admirable to himself, 
as afterwards, transferred to marble, it was for 
many ages to the world." 

" Yes," said Dalbrook, "• a strange wind 
will sometimes rend asunder the cloud-cur- 
tains from the soul, and the fair creation, 
perfected in secret, lies unexpectedly be- 
fore us like the gift of some higher gen- 
ius." 

" Some such process," said Maurice, "some 
such influence as this of Phidias's, in one man- 
ner or another, most poets seem to have felt. 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 147 

What else is it that they call their inspira- 
tion ? " 

" Well ! " cried Elizabeth, " the sun is 
going down here also ; our groves on such a 
night are little worse than those of Elis. If I 
should sing you some song to my harp, we 
might have the scene of this same Phidias 
moderately realised ; and then," added she 
archly, '■'■ if any of you geniuses had a heart, 
who knows but you might make somewhat 
yourselves by winds of inspiration?" 

" Do let us try, Elizabeth ! " cried several 
voices. 

Elizabeth complying, sang handsomely 
enough, with sweet accompanying harp-tones, 
a not ungraceful song to evening ; but none 
of our friends, as would appear, played Phid- 
ias to it, but retired to the house, and by de- 
grees to their rooms, without creation of any 
sort ; nay, rather, with destruction, for cer- 
tain of them consumed some supper. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The inmates of the House in the Wold 
were a fluctuating brotherhood ; now coming-, 
now departing ; so that week after week, 
often day after day, a new assortment of char- 
acters appeared upon the scene. Bernard 
had not yet returned ; and Vv^otton was spend- 
ing the morning in a richly-furnished picture- 
gallery, under the conduct of his fair hostess, 
who had herself proposed this indoors occu- 
pation, less with a view of instructing her new 
friend in pictorial art, for which, however, she 
Vv-as well qualified, than of gradually dispell- 
ing his reserve, and winning her way into 
more free communication with him. For 
such an object, which besides she carefully 
kept out of sight, this place was not ill chosen. 
Wotton knew little of art, but his suscepti- 
bility for it was deep and keen ; these noble 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. j^^ 

pictures could not but pleasantly engage him ; 
and while under the clear and graceful com- 
mentary of one speaking from the heart and 
to the heart, many a figure rose with fresh 
loveliness before his eyes, and revealed to him 
in glimpses the secret of its beauty, he felt as 
if acquiring some new sense, and distant an- 
ticipations of unknown glories finally predis- 
posed him for giving and receiving, at inter- 
vals, some friendlier expression of personal 
feeling, with which the pictorial lesson might 
be intermingled. He began to be at home 
with his fair critic, and had the satisfaction to 
perceive that here and there an observation 
which he hazarded was partially approved 
of, and given back to him by new examples, 
and in new elucidation and expansion. The 
thought of being interrupted could not have 
been welcome to either, when the rolling of a 
carriage rapidly approached the house, and 
terminated in as loud an explosion of sound as 
the gravel would admit of before the main 
door. 

" It is Isabella and her nephew," said the 



I50 WOTTON REINFRED. 

lady. *' We shall by and bye resume our lect- 
ure. Meanwhile let us go and meet them." 

The gallery extended from the drawing- 
room, which they had reached by a side en- 
trance, when the door flew open, and a ser- 
vant ushered in the new guests. The airy 
lady and her gay voluble compliments, as she 
floated in with her silken travelling attire, ob- 
tained little notice from Wotton, for his whole 
being was fascinated in strange pain, at 
another name and aspect. Figure his mood 
when he found himself introduced in form to 
Captain — Edmund Walter! For one suffocat- 
ing moment no force of ceremonial principle 
could hide the fierce alarm which pealed 
through his soul ; but he stood motionless, 
and with wild dilated eye, the quiverings or 
quick stormful flushes of the face must have 
betokened mystery to the least heedful wit- 
ness. Over Walter's darker countenance there 
also passed, but with inconceivable rapidity, a 
twinge of sternest recognition ; but it van- 
ished as it rose ; and with courteous compos- 
ure, he approached his new acquaintance, 



WOT TON REINFRED. 151 

affably expressing his happiness in meeting 
with a countryman, of whom he had often 
heard ; and subjoined this and that compli- 
mentary remark, passing by easy transition to 
more general topics, and this with a frankness, 
nay, a kindness, which irresistibly rolled back 
the tempest into Wotton's heart, and with 
gentle influence smoothed him into calmness. 
Thus was serenity restored almost before it 
had been missed ; the company were at their 
ease, and Wotton wondered to find himself so- 
cially exchanging indifferent thoughts with this 
man, both hearts meanwhile, it is like, shut up 
in enmity; as soldiers from two hostile camps 
may for a time mingle in some common mar- 
ket, and traffic peaceably, though their artil- 
lery is not destroyed, but only slumbering 
within the trenches, and to-morrow they must 
join in battle. 

Some such thought was lurking in the 

background of Wotton's mind ; but Walter's 

j thoughts seemed not of war, for nothing could 

be friendlier and gayer than the temper he 

j showed. Dorothy alone glanced at him now 



1^2 WOT TON REINFKED. 

and then, as if she had observed the effect of 
his entrance, and not forgotten it ; as if she 
suspected somewhat. To Wotton, again, 
deeply as he reckoned himself entitled to de- 
test and dread this Walter, there was a singu- 
lar dominion in his presence ; a power which, 
whether it were benignant or the contrary, 
you could not but in part respect. He seemed 
a man of thirty, military in his air rather 
than his dress ; his compact, sinewy frame im- 
pressed you in its soldier-like repose with an 
idea of strength beyond his stature, which, 
however, was tall and portly ; while the thick 
black locks clustering in careless profusion 
round that face, so still and massive, burnt by 
many suns ; the broad brow ; the calm, quick 
eyes, fearless, not defiant ; the lips, firm with- 
out effort, and curved in manifold j^et scarce 
perceptible expression ; all bespoke a charac- 
ter of singular vehemence and vigour, a strik- 
ing union of passionate force with the strict- 
est self-control. Yet this self-control did not 
invite you, but rather silently beckoned you 
away ; for this, too, seemed passionate, the re- 



WOT TON REINFRED. 1^3 

suit not of love, but of pride ; not of principle, 
but of calculation ; its very strength seemed 
dangerous. You would have said, the man had 
lived in wild perils and wild pleasures ; min- 
gling stormfuUj in both, but surrendering him- 
self to neither ; acting among multitudes, nay, 
ruling over them, yet apart and alone when in 
the midst of them ; it was as if no difficulty 
could discompose him, no danger make him 
tremble, but, also, no pity make him weep. 
To Wotton there was something alienating 
and oppressive in this look of quietude, of 
sufficiency, and unsuffering isolation ; he 
gazed on the man, sitting there, thrown negli- 
gently backwards, speaking with such vivid- 
ness and penetration, yet so cool, so indiffer- 
ent; and there were moments when, had it 
not been for a softer gleam, perhaps of sor- 
row, now and then blending in the steady fire 
of those dark eyes, he could almost have fan- 
cied him a man molten out of bronze. 

In a little while, the gay Isabella had re- 
tired to her room, and Walter, who professed 
an unabated love for art, volunteered to attend 



L 



154 WOTTON REINFRED 

our two students in a farther survey of the 
gallery. Wotton was again among his pict- 
ures ; his eye still followed that of his fair in- 
structress ; but the pleasure of the lesson was 
now in great part gone. His late growing 
frankness, checked rudely enough by this ren- 
counter, had given place to a certain irksome 
estrangement, which, indeed, Walter himself 
by many little attentions, the more artful that 
they seemed involuntary, was the readiest to 
attempt removing. Walter's feeling of art ap- 
peared much more distinct, but also much 
coarser and narrower than Wotton's ; you 
would have said he admired in the picture lit- 
tle more than some reflex of himself. For the 
still beauty, and meek, graceful significance of 
Raphael he expressed no love ; he lingered 
rather over the scenes of Caspar, Poussin, and 
Salvator, as if enjoying their savage strength, 
as if in art in general the superiority of beauty 
to force had not been revealed to him. But 
what he chiefly dwelt on were portraits, by 
eminent masters of eminent men. For the 
merit of these his taste seemed true ; yet his 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. I 55 

partialities were regulated by the former prin- 
ciple, and appeared to depend as much on the 
subject as on the painter. 

" Cousin," said Dorothy, with a smile, " I 
grieve to see you are still an idolater and no 
true worshipper in art ; with the clearest sense 
of what is good you do not prefer the best ; it 
is not the pure ideal, but the exciting real that 
you look for ; you want devoutness, cousin ; 
you reverence only power." 

*' I am without critical taste," said Walter ; 
" but I tell you honestly what I enjoy and 
what I do not. Here, for instance," continued 
he, " here is my old friend again ; can I help 
it if I like him ? " 

" It is Cromwell's portrait," said Wotton. 
" Truly a striking picture ; and, if I mistake 
not, physiognomically expressive of the man." 

" Old Noll, as he looked and lived ! " said 
Walter. " The armed genius of Puritanism ; 
dark in his inward light ; negligent, awkward, 
in his strength ; meanly apparelled in his 
pride ; base-born, and yet more than kingly 
Those bushy grizzled locks, flowing over his 



L 



156 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

shoulders ; that high, care-worn brow ; the 
gleam of those eyes, cold and stern as the 
sheen of a winter moon ; that rude, rough- 
hewn, battered face, so furrowed over with 
mad inexplicable traces, the very wart on the 
cheek, are full of meaning. This is the man 
whose words no one could interpret, but 
whose thoughts were clearest wisdom, who 
spoke in laborious folly, in voluntary or in- 
voluntary enigmas, but saw and acted uner- 
ringly as fate. Confusion, ineptitude, dishon- 
esty are pictured on his countenance, but 
through these shines a fiery strength, nay, a 
grandeur, as of a true hero. You see that he 
was fearless, resolute as a Scanderbeg, yet 
cunning and double withal, like some paltry 
pettyfogger. He is your true enthusiastic 
hypocrite ; at once crackbrained and inspired ; 
a knave and a demigod ; in brief, old Noll as 
he looked and lived ! Confront him in contest 
with that mild melancholy Stuart, who eyes 
him in regal grace and order from the other 
wall, and you see that royalty is lost, that it is 
but withered stubble to devouring fire." 



WOTTON REINFRED. it^y 

" Yet ih.Q gray discrowned head^' said Doro- 
thy, " has something of a martyr halo round 
it in feeling minds; and our thoughts dwell 
rather with the ringdove in his nest, than with 
the falcon who made it desolate." 

" I confess I am for the falcon," said Wot- 
ton, '■'■ only he should fly at other game than 
ringdoves. And for this martyr of ours, we 
love him chiefly, I believe, because he was 
unfortunate ; otherwise in his history there is 
much to pity, but little to admire. Surely, 
indeed, to quit our figure, it is wrong to rev- 
erence the spirit of power, considered simply 
as such ; yet power is the sense of all sublim- 
ity, and does not this of necessity captivate 
the mind ; nay, is it not the chief element of 
religion itself? " 

" Scarcely of the highest religion, our phi- 
losophers would tell us," answered she. '' Per- 
fect love casteth out fear. To a true worship- 
per, the omnipotence of God is lost in His 
holiness ; in other words, sublimity is swal- 
lowed up in all-comprehending beauty. You 
will observe, too, how much easier it is to 



158 WOT TON- RE IN FRED. 

homage the former than the latter attribute. 
In every thunderstorm we see the very beasts 
fall prostrate with a sort of terror-struck, slav- 
ish Avorship, and dumb cry for mercy ; such, 
likewise, has been, and in great part still is, 
the devotion of most men ; but for the pure 
soul that, without thought of self, worships 
the beauty of holiness, fears not and yet rever- 
ences, we still look as for a jewel in the com- 
mon sand ; and in ourselves we are glad if we 
can trace any vestiges of what in its complete 
sovereignty should form the crowning glory 
of our culture. For is it not our chief glory 
that the strong can be made obedient to the 
weak ; that we yield not to force but to good- 
ness ; that we walk under heavenly influences, 
which are mild and still, not under earthly de- 
sires, which are fierce and tumultuous ? Nay, 
that while these incessantly assault us, those 
alone should quicken us, alone be felt and re- 
garded. Of you, my friend, I shall one day 
make a convert; but for our cousin here," 
added she, with a grave smile, '' he is wedded 
to his errors." 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 15^ 

"And a stormy matrimony we have had of 
it," said Walter, " before the household could 
be brought to peace. But positively, cousin, 
you do me wrong ; I have my lucid intervals 
as well as another ; only in a life of storm 
and battle our philosophy will sometimes step 
aside, and many things must be left as they 
can be, not as they should." 

Dorothy, with a faint smile, shook her 
head. On the whole it seemed to be an object 
with the soldier to stand well with her ; an 
object which, under a show of candour and in- 
difference, he was not imperceptibly pursuing 
with unusual eagerness, and in which with all 
his mastery in such arts, he appeared by no 
means completely prospering. In the pierc- 
ing eye of such a woman, the craftiest dissimu- 
lation brings no perfect concealment ; in pure 
souls there is an instinct which, in the absence 
of vision, warns them away from the bad, and 
as if in obscure beckonings declares : ** There 
cannot be communion between us." Much 
more when this instinct, the product of the 
heart, has been allied to quickness of intellect- 



l6o WOT TON REIN FRED. 

ual perception, and its dim intimations be- 
come clear in the light of long observation 
and experience of men and their ways. Wal- 
ter's secret might be hidden, but the hiding of 
it was not hidden ; under this smooth smiling 
expanse his fair cousin felt that there were 
rocks and cruel abysses ; that whoso trusted 
to its calmness might find it a treacherous 
element, and in its strength make shipwreck. 

But in a little while the Lady Isabella 
flitted in, new and glittering like a pheasant 
after moultmg-time ; in whose gay, graceful 
discursiveness all sober study, all serious pur- 
pose, whether of aversion or affection, neces- 
sarily found its turn. She was one of those 
souls to whom Heaven has denied the power 
of any perseverance. Sharp, rapid in her un- 
derstanding, keen and many times correct in 
her tastes, she had, indeed, the elements of 
much worth within her, but these so loosely 
combined, and intermixed with such a quan- 
tity of light alloy, that generally their influ- 
ence was ineffectual, nay, often their existence 
altogether invisible. She looked upon the 



WOTTON REIN FRED. y6i 

world as a vain show, for such to her it really 
was ; without serious interest in it, without 
hope, or, indeed, wish of any abiding good, 
she flickered through it gracefully and care- 
lessly as through the mazes of a masquerade, 
neither loving any of her brother figures nor 
hating any, content if this or that individual 
among them could transiently amuse her with 
his talent, and all would gratify her with due 
admiration. Nor was it men only that she 
viewed as masks, but, indeed, all things ; in 
her conceptions no object was, properly speak- 
ing, of more than two dimensions, length and 
breadth, without thickness ; so she dwelt not 
among things, but among hollow shells of 
things, mere superficies, of more or less brill- 
iancy in truth, but without solidity or value, 
and which thus deserved no care from her, 
thus obtained none. For with all her suscep- 
tibility it was nearly impossible to fix her 
mind on aught ; greatness, goodness of any 
sort, would bring a tear into her bright eyes, 
but next moment she was thinking how very 
singular this greatness or this goodness looked. 



1 62 WOT TON RE IN FRED. 

She believed in Heaven and Hell ; yet always 
after the first thrill of wonder or terror, she 
insensibly figured them like more extended 
meetings at Almack's ; the first, a bright as- 
semblage, gas-lit, harmonious, fantastic, and 
unspeakably amusing; the last, some obscure 
chaotic medley, horrid, it is true, but chiefly 
by its dulness and vulgarity, an intensation 
merely of the horror suffered in a maladroit 
*' At Home." Thus all things in her were like 
Sybil's leaves ; her opinions, purposes, moods, 
at the breath of every accident, were in con- 
tinual flux and reflux, and if with her gaiety 
and grace she was delightful for an hour, her 
dominion for a day was well-nigh insupport- 
able. 

To Wotton, in his present humour, such 
entertainment was peculiarly unsolacing : this 
sparkling, fitful levity, which he could neither 
rule nor obey, distressed him ; but if Walter's 
presence had been like a nightmare, which he 
thought not to withstand, this was a continual 
dropping, which in its annoyance reminded 
him of escape. He seized the first fit oppor- 



WOT TON REINFRED. 163 

tunity ; said something of his customary morn- 
ing ride ; and with hasty compliments took 
leave. 

His morning ride was a ceremony of no 
binding nature ; but a new light rose on him 
while his horse was a-saddling. " Would I 
were with Bernard ! '* thought he ; for his 
heart was weighed down with a crushing 
load, and he felt as if free speech would be an 
inexpressible relief to him. Leaving a proper 
message with the groom, he accordingly in- 
quired his way across the hills ; learned that 
in two hours of good riding he might reach 
his friend ; and so at a brisk pace, which soon 
became a gallop, he left the happy valley. 

Such furious speed seemed at once to ex- 
press and in some degree assuage the internal 
uproar; but in his mind there was neither 
peace nor clearness, all was yet imagination 
and sensation ; its forms had not given birth 
to thoughts, but in their greater stillness were 
only growing more complicated, more gigan- 
tic; and ever as he pulled up, in ascending 
some rough steep, or from his ledge of road 



164 WOTTON REIN FRED, 

looked down into the shaggy chasm, it seemed 
amid the sound of waterfalls and moaning 
woods and hoarse choughs, as if deep were 
speaking of him to deep in prophetic words 
full of mystery, sadness, and awe. The jour- 
ney itself was soon and safely accomplished, 
but it proved ineffectual. Bernard was from 
home, he had gone with the nobleman, his 
landlord, to attend some meeting in the mar- 
ket town of the district, and was not expected 
till the morrow. 

With difficulty, Wotton, bent on continu- 
ing his quest, yielded to friendly entreaty and 
alighted, that so clearer direction and brief 
rest and refreshment might enable man and 
horse to pursue their route with more conven- 
ience. The town was at some twelve miles 
distance, and two roads led to it; of which 
our traveller preferred the horseway through 
the mountains, as shorter and more solitary ; 
for in this mood the waste stillness of such 
regions was friendh'' to him. For the rest, the 
mansion being empty, save of servants, no un- 
essential delay was called for : in a little while 



WOTTON REIN FRED. 165 

Radbury Park with its groves and lawns had 
disappeared, and Wotton was again mounting 
the uplands in vain eagerness to reach what 
he half knew could little avail him. The de- 
clining sun shone softly on him through the 
foliage of the glens ; the brooks gushed loud 
and cheerful by his side ; and often from some 
open eminence his eye rested on stern blue 
ranges, or caught here and there the glitter of 
a lake or streamlet in the distance. But his 
heart was heavy and alone as in old days ; the 
dreamy hope which had mingled with so much 
inquietude in the morning, seemed to die away 
and retire into littleness, as the scene of it re- 
tired ; and he asked himself : '■'■ What art thou 
to this man Walter, or what is he to thee, that 
thou shouldst either shrink from him or seek 
him ? Dost thou still love, still look for bless- 
edness, outcast as thou art? Art not thou poor 
and helpless ; are not the gates of human ac- 
tivity inexorably shut against thee ? Have I 
an aim that is not mad, a hope of peace but in 
the chambers of death ! O thou bright form, 
why lingerest thou still in the desert of my 



1 66 WOTTON RE IN FRED. 

life? Vanish, fair treacherous vision, vanish 
and mock me not. If I have been unwise I 
bear it, and darkness and desolation are my 
lot for ever." 

In this humour, little would have tempted 
him to turn his horse suddenly ; to snap asun- 
der these new-formed ties, and, without leave- 
taking, hurry back to his native solitudes with 
blank despondency for his guide. But shame 
and a little remnant of hope still urged him 
forward : " After all," said he, '* what have I 
to lose ? My integrity is mine, and nothing 
more. Who fears not death, him no shadow 
can make tremble ; " and reciting this latter 
sentence with a strong low tone in the original 
words of Euripides, its author ; he rode along 
as if composing his soul by this antique spell 
into forced and painful rest. 

In a short while his attention was called 
outwards from these meditations, for the val- 
ley he had been ascending closed in abruptly 
on a broad, rugged mountain, stretching like 
a wall across the whole breadth of the hollow, 
the high sides of which it irregularly inter- 



WOTTON REINFRED. i^y 

sected, forming on both hands a rude course 
for the winter torrents, and on the right a 
path, which suddenly became so steep and 
stony that Wotton judged it prudent to dis- 
mount while climbing it. Arrived with some 
labour at the top, he again found himself in 
the western sunlight, which had been hid be- 
low, and he paused with the bridle in his hand 
to wonder over a scene which, whether by its 
natural character, or from the present temper 
of his own mind, surpassed in impressiveness 
all that he had ever looked on. 

It was an upland wavy expanse of heath or 
rough broken downs, where valleys in com- 
plex branching were, openly or impercepti- 
bly, arranging their declivity towards every 
quarter of the sky. The hilltops were beneath 
his feet ; the cottages, the groves, and mead- 
ows lapped up in the folds of these lower 
ranges and hid from sight ; but the loftiest 
summits of the region towered up here and 
there as from their base ; gray cliffs also were 
scattered over the waste, and tarns lay clear 
and earnest in their solitude. Close on the left 



1 68 WOT TON REINFRED. 

was a deep chasm, the begmnhig of another 
valley, on the farther side of which abruptly 
rose a world of fells, as it were, the crown and 
centre of the whole mountain country ; a hun- 
dred and a hundred savage peaks attracting" 
eye and heart by their form, for all was glow- 
ing like molten gold in the last light of the sun 
now setting behind them, and in this majestic 
silence to the wanderer, pensive and lonely in 
this wilderness, the scene was not only beauti- 
ful but solemn, Wotton was affected to his 
inmost soul ; he gazed over these stupendous 
masses in their strange light, and it seemed to 
him as if till now he had never known Nature ; 
never felt that she had, indeed, a fairy and un- 
speakable loveliness ; nay, that she was his 
mother and divine. And as the ruddy glow 
faded into clearness in the sky, and the sheen 
of the peaks grew purple and sparkling, and 
the day was now to depart, a murmur of eter- 
nity and immensity, a voice from other worlds, 
stole through his soul, and he almost felt as if 
the earth were not dead : as if the spirit of the 
earth might have its throne in this glory, and 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 169 

his own spirit might commune with it as with 
a kindred thing. '' ^Qpeo-repa irdfju^oTL Fa ! '* 
internally exclaimed he in Doric words ; 
** 'Hpearepa irdfji^QTi Va, thou rugged all-sup- 
porting earth ! " 

But what words can express our feeling in 
such hours ? It is as if the spirit for a mo- 
ment were delivered from the claj^ ; as if in Pis- 
gah vision it descried the gates of its celestial 
home, and tones of a diviner melody wafted 
from beyond this world, led captive our puri- 
fied sense. And the thought of death, as in 
all scenes of grandeur, steals over us, and of 
our lost ones that are already hid in the nar- 
row house, and of all the innumerable nations 
of the dead that are there before them, the 
great and famous that have gone thither since 
the beginning of time. Their multitude af- 
frights us ; the living are but a handful ; one 
wave in the boundless tide of ages. Who 
would grieve for his own light afflictions in 
this universal doom ? Who could envy, who 
could hate or injure any fellow-man? Frail 
transitory man ! we weep over him in fondest 



170 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

pity, for the shadows of Death bound in our 
brightest visions, and mingling in the jubilee 
of Nature is heard a voice of lamentation ! 

Wotton was aroused from his strange rev- 
eries by the tramp of approaching riders. 
Starting round, he observed a cavalcade 
emerging from the dwarf thickets that skirted 
the base of a neighbouring cliff, and advancing 
towards him at a brisk pace ; or, rather, per- 
haps, towards his track which winded for- 
ward through the wolds obliquely to their 
present one. The evening light shone full on 
the group, which consisted of two men gaily 
mounted and a lady between them, managing 
a light Arab with the skill and elegance of a 
complete equestrian. Long folds of a dark 
riding-dress flowed over her feet and the side 
of her horse ; black locks waved in graceful 
clusters beneath her gold-banded fur barrette ; 
but, as she approached, the first glimpse of 
her features struck our hero with a nameless 
feeling. His presence also in these solitudes 
at such an hour seemed to give surprise in its 
turn, for the whole party simultaneously 



WOT TON REINFRED. iprj 

pulled in as they noticed him ; and the lady 
drew back and hastily dropped her veil. 

" A good evening, fair sir ! " said one of 
the riders, advancing near him. " You lin- 
ger late on the moors. Has anything be- 
fallen ? " 

Wotton was instinctively clinging to his 
horse, which this new arrival had disturbed : 
but in his confusion he scarcely knew what 
the stranger had said, much less how to an- 
swer him with courtesy ; he answered merely 
with a slight bow and an inquiring, " Sir?" 

" Nay, Jack, you are wrong, 'tis another ! " 
cried the second horseman also coming up. 
" Pardon us, sir ! " continued he, addressing 
Wotton. " The sight of a traveller at sunset 
on these wolds and not in motion but at rest 
surprised us, and we have forgotten good 
manners in interfering with your privacy. 
We crave your pardon." 

" The wilderness has privileges of its own," 
said Wotton, who had now recovered him- 
self. " In such solitudes every human face is 
friendly. No pardon, for there is no offence, 



1^2 WOT TON REINFRED. 

but a favour. I am a stranger among the 
mountains, a passing pilgrim ; the wild light 
of these fells detained me in spite of haste. 
If our roads go together, I shall be proud of 
such company, I am riding northwards." 

" We ride alone," said the first horseman, 
in a somewhat surly voice. 

Wotton looked in his face ; the man, natu- 
rally nowise truculent, had an aspect of elab- 
orate resolve, almost of menace. 

" You have leave, sirs," answered Wotton 
coldly, and bending his eyes towards the path 
they had quitted. 

" And we go armed," said the other, glanc- 
ing at his holsters, and evidently piqued by 
this indifference. 

" Z>^fensively, I may presume," said Wot- 
ton, in a still chiller tone. '' But for the love of 
God, madame," cried he with utmost earnest- 
ness, and advancing a step towards the lady, 
whose horse had now joined the rest, " tell 
me, are not you — ?" 

** Ah, yes ! " faintly interrupted the sweet 
silver voice of Jane Montagu. " But — " 



WOT TON REIN FRED. ^j-i^ 

" Gracious God ! " exclaimed he, almost 
sinking in the unspeakable conflict of his feel- 
ings. " Oh, my friend I ray friend ! " 

** Wotton Reinfred," said she, in a livelier 
tone, as he grasped her hand, *' if you are in- 
deed m}^ friend, you will not quarrel with my 
guardians, nay, my blood relations. Here is 
no time for ceremonies and the point of hon- 
our. This is no recreant, but a true knight* 
and loyal to me. Of caitiffs we have enow 
besides ; there, give him your hand ; and for 
you, sir, mount, if you will, and come along 
with us." 

The surly rider brightened up into frank- 
ness as she spoke in this tone ; readily apolo- 
gising for his over-hastiness, he proffered cor- 
dial reconcilement ; and thus, in the singular 
vicissitudes of a few moments, was Wotton 
riding forward through the desert, at the side 
of one whom he had long bitterly mourned as 
lost, and 3^et could scarcely in his tumultuous 
bewilderment believe that he had found. 

The rapid pace at which they rode was 
unfavorable to talk or explanation, which, at 



174 WOT TON REINFRED. 

any rate, the lady seemed desirous to avoid ; 
she did not lift her veil ; she answered briefly, 
and in a voice from which its first liveliness, 
perhaps only a transient gleam constrained 
for the occasion, had disappeared. She was 
evidently thoughtful, earnest, and it might be, 
her thoughts were of sorrow rather than of 
joy. As for Wotton, his mind was as in a 
maze ; the past would not join with the pres- 
ent or the future ; and at times, as he dashed 
along in silence with the rest, the dusk sink- 
ing deeper and stiller over the mountains in 
their horizon, and the crags near at hand 
growing whiter, huger, and almost spectral, 
and the quick footsteps of the horses alone 
sounding through the v/aste, or mingling in 
echoes with the rush of distant waters, he 
could have fancied that his senses were deceiv- 
ing him ; that he should awake and find this 
vision, so full of sadness and of rapture, only a 
dream-picture, a pageant of the mind. 

** But is it really you ? " whispered he, 
with melting heart in the ear of his loved one, 
as he approached her for a moment. " Is it 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 175 

really you, the Jane whom I have sat with 
and talked with of old ? For here in the wiz- 
ard solitude, I begin to doubt it, and feel that 
I were too happy." 

*' God knows," said she, " times are altered, 
and we with them ; but surely I was once 
Jane Montagu, and had a friend called Rein- 
fred. That you may believe." 

The two horsemen were silent also, or 
spoke only at intervals, and of their distance 
from the town, the qualities of the road, or 
the rare performance of their horses. In an- 
other hour the foreground of the scene grew 
darker, and the track began to slope. At last, 
far down, rose the light of the burgh, gleam- 
ing peacefully in hospitable sheen against the 
sky, like a beacon to the wayfarer. Our party 
descended into the valley, and soon a smooth 
shady road conducted them to paved streets 
and their inn. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Jane Montagu had with brief good- 
night retired directly to her apartment, an 
example which her two attendants, wearied 
by a hard day's journey, seemed not disin- 
clined to follow. Their supper with our 
friend was short, and in regard to table-talk, 
laborious rather than exhilarating ; they yet 
knew not rightly on what footing he was to 
stand, or how far he might safely be admitted 
to their secrets, so that cheerfulness and trust- 
ful communing gave place on all hands to po- 
liteness and cautious generalities. From their 
conversation, which he could but watch, not 
lead, he had gathered only that they were 
naval officers, that Jaspar the elder and blunter 
of the two, was in fact the cousin of Jane, 
with whose character and late history, how- 
ever, he appeared nowise personally familiar, 



WOT TON REINFRED. lyy 

nor did either he or Elton his comrade seem 
to be her lover, though in her fortunes both 
testified a true interest. For the rest, the 
party was evidently in a state resembling 
flight, though whence or whither was not so 
much as hinted, only a pressing entreaty for 
silence and concealment taught Wotton that 
they still reckoned themselves within the 
sphere of pursuit, and dreaded being over- 
taken as a great evil. To their request he 
gave a strict and prompt assent, and so with 
expressions of good will, and of hopes that 
what v/as dark would to the happiness of all 
become light, the company broke up, and 
Wotton like the strangers withdrew to his 
room. 

From the servants he had learned that 
Bernard was in the town, nay at that very 
hour in the inn, but to speak to him, much 
as he had longed for it, he now carefully 
avoided. What could he speak of, v»rhen all 
concerns were swallowed up in one, of which 
he could not yet divine the mystery, or thou- 
sandfold importance, and must not even whis- 



178 WOTTON REINFRED. 

per his surmises ? But what, now in his seclu- 
sion, was he to think of this strange day ? 
What had befallen Jane Montagu, that she 
was crossing the mountains, a fugitive, encom- 
passed with anxieties, and under such dubious 
escort? The men seemed honourable men, 
and of the friendliest feelings to her ; but 
whither was she hastening with them, what 
was she flying or in search of ? Was it in fear 
or hope ; was she driven or allured ? To all 
which questions, with the utmost strain of his 
invention, he could answer nothing, but he 
only in baffled efforts at conjecture increased 
the weariness which was already stealing over 
him like the advance of night. 

Did she love another, then ; did she trust 
another more than him ? Her manner had 
been kind, confiding, nay for moments almost 
tender. No ! She did not love another ! 
Gracious Heaven ! She still loved him ! And 
was she unfortunate ? Did she need his help ? 
Could he assist her ; could his heart, his life 
have value to her? And this thought, like a 
little point of splendour, by degrees tinged in 



WOTTON REINFRED. lyg 

wild hues of beauty the whole chaos of his 
mind ; the cruel became meek, the impossible 
easy ; all harsh discordant shapes, expanding 
into infinitude, coalesced in friendly union 
and his spirit sank into sleep as into a sea of 
many-coloured lights. 

At an early hour he awoke from vague 
gorgeous dreams, but depressed and heavy- 
laden, and with the feeling of a man who has 
much to do and suffer. Looking forth from 
his window across the wide courtyard with its 
grooms in their miscellaneous occupation, he 
observed in the alleys of the garden, two men 
walking to and fro and earnestly conversing, 
one of whom he directly recognised for Ber- 
nard. The air of his friend seemed anxious 
and busy ; he v/as bent forward and moving 
his hand as in the endeavour to persuade, 
while his companion, apparently a man of 
rank, seemed listening kindly rather than re- 
plying. Wotton drew back, for at present he 
dreaded interruptions even from Bernard. 

He was scarcely dressed, when a servant 
whom he had summoned for some other pur- 



l8o WOT TON RE IN FRED, 

pose delivered him a note. The handwriting 
Wotton knew of old, it was Jane Montagu's ! 
" To Wotton Reinfred, Esquire." He opened 
and read : 

"• A new day has risen, and like the Wan- 
dering Jew I must again set forth with the 
morning. Come and wish me good speed ere 
I go ! A strange chance restored me a friend, 
and in two hours I must part with him, per- 
haps for ever." 

Wotton made no loitering ; in a few min- 
utes, with proper guidance and announcement, 
he found himself in a trim, quiet, little parlour, 
where Jane Montagu, already in her travel- 
ling attire, received him with smiles, beautiful 
in their sadness as a cloudy summer morn. 
Both parties looked embarrassed, as they nat- 
urally felt, while there was so much demand- 
ing utterance, and no words in which it could 
be uttered. What change since these two 
had last met face to face ! What a chasm 
now separated them, over which in the pale 
dusk of memory, hovered past joys, mourn- 
fully beckoning them from afar, and as if 



tVO TTON REIN FRED. i g i 

weeping that there was no return ! Those 
times were now gone, that blissful community 
of life had been all rent asunder, and yet still 
her right hand was in his, and they again 
stood near in space, though in relation so 
widely divided ! A tear was gathering in the 
bright eyes of Jane, which she fixed on the 
ground, and through Wotton's heart v/ere 
quivering wild tones of remembrance and 
hope, wailing as of infinite grief, and touches 
of rapture rising almost to pain. He gazed 
silently on that loved form ; there was no mo- 
tion in her hand, but she timidly raised her 
face, where over soft, quick blushes tears were 
stealing and next moment, neither knew how- 
it was, but his arms were round her, and her 
bosom was on his, and in the first pure heav- 
enly kiss of love two souls were melted into 
one. 

It was but for a moment. She sharply, al- 
most angrily withdrew herself and cried, hid- 
ing her face : " Forbear, sir ! If you hope to 
see me another minute, no more of this ! " 
Wotton stood confounded at his rashness, yet 



1 82 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

glorying in its celestial fruit : he attempted in 
broken words to apologise. 

" Beware, sir ! " said she. *' It was not to 
hear love declarations, which I must not lis- 
ten to, that I sent for you hither. My life is 
made for sterner stuff; they are far other 
tasks that await me. Alas ! " continued she, 
*' I have no friend in this world, if you be my 
lover. I am an unhappy girl, an orphan wan- 
derer ! " she burst into weeping. 

" Jane Montagu ! *' said Wotton, in a voice 
striving to be calm, " I have hoped, I have 
wished for no other happiness, but to be your 
friend and brother through all time. If there 
was ever any vestige of goodness in me, be- 
lieve that I am yours, to live and die for you 
as you shall desire. Weak, unworthy I am, 
but not wicked ; trust in me, O trust in me ! 
Can I betray your trust ? Can I give it in ex- 
change as a thing less precious ? O what else 
could my life have in it worth keeping ! " 

" My wish and purpose is to trust you," 
said she, giving him her hand, which he mod- 
estly pressed to his lips. " I am parting from 



WOT TON REINFRED, 183 

you, but I would not part from your good 
wishes, from your estimation. But come, 
why all this tragedy ? " continued she, in a 
lighter tone, and summoning a smile through 
her tears. " Sit down, and speak to me, for I 
have much to inquire and say, and it will be 
long before we meet again." 

" In Heaven's name," cried he, " whither 
are you going? Why did I lose you, and in 
what strange scenes have I found you after 
long waiting ? " 

" You have a right to ask," said she ; " but 
I cannot answer in a word. Have patience 
with me ; I have longed to tell you all ; 
longed to unfold the sad perplexities which 
encompass me, to give them voice and shape 
to any mortal that was not false-hearted, who 
if he could not offer me help, would faith- 
fully offer me pity, the solace of all the 
wretched. I have been alone in my grief, 
alone ! Perhaps it were wiser to continue so, 
but it is otherwise determined ; listen to me, 
you shall hear all." 

Wotton sat in breathless attention, and the 



1 84 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

fair Jane with a resolute eifort at indifference 
and composure, thus proceeded : 

^* I might well say with Macbeth : My 
May of life is fallen into the sear and yellow 
leaf, were it not that little sunshine visits one 
at any time, and as for my life, I think it has 
been cast in some Nova Zembla climate, 
where however it might be May by the cal- 
endar, by the sky it was December. Bright 
blue hours I have had too, and one always 
hopes the weather will mend ! 

*' Of my childhood I can say little. Some- 
thing whispers me that in the earlier part of 
it I was happier, for I have faint recollections 
of a pleasant home and kind nurses, and one 
that used to weep over me and kiss me, per- 
haps she was my mother. But an obscure, 
confused period succeeds ; of which I have no 
remembrance, except a certain vague impres- 
sion of tumult and distress ; and this first 
scene stands like some fair little island, di- 
vided by wild seas from my whole after life. I 
had lost my parents, how I have never known ; 
some baleful mystery hangs over their fate, a 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 185 

gloomy secret, which when I have inquired 
into, I have been answered only in hints and 
dark warnings to forbear inquiring. Unhappy 
father ! It seems he must have died miser- 
ably, sometimes I have feared by his own hand. 
And she too, the good mother, she that 
fondled me and laid me on her bosom, was 
for ever hid from my eyes. Alas ! was she my 
mother? or is this also but a dream which I 
mistake for a reminiscence ? Father or mother 
in truth I have never known. 

" You have seen my aunt, and something 
of her character, which therefore I need not 
describe at large. Surely I owe her much, 
she was my sole benefactress ; herself a 
widow, she found me a helpless orphan, for 
with their ill-starred life the fortune of my par- 
ents had also gone to wreck, and had it not 
been for her affection I v/as destitute as well 
as orphaned. Affection I may call it, though 
of a strange sort, and made up of mere contra- 
dictions. She has shared her all with me ; 
though poor she has shunned no cost in pro- 
curing me instruction and improvement, in- 



1 86 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

deed day after day she has watched over me 
with the solicitude of a mother, yet scarcely 
a day has passed but I have had to doubt 
whether her feeling towards me was love or 
hatred. In my childhood often she would hold 
me in her arms, and gaze over me till her 
heart seemed melting with saddest tender- 
ness, then all at once I have seen those swim- 
ming eyes flash into fury, and she would 
spurn me from her as an accursed thing. A 
tempestuous life we had of it, and sore many 
tinies was my little heart oppressed and vexed. 
I had none to trust in, I wept in secret, and 
were it not that childhood is naturally forget- 
ful and inclined to joy, I must have been often 
quite wretched. 

** My aunt is certainly no common person ; 
she has the most decisive opinions, a firm and 
speedy resolve, high feelings also, indeed a 
certain taste for all excellence. Yet these fine 
elements of goodness have in her come to no 
good ; she is proud, vindictive, jealous, she 
does even kindness unkindly, and her temper 
is changeful as winter winds. It seems as if 



WOTTON REINFRED. jg^ 

some malign influence had passed over her na- 
ture, and thwarted into perverse direction so 
many possibilities of virtue. Poor lady ! For 
if she makes others suffer, she herself suffers 
still more. It is long since I discovered that 
she had no happiness, no peace, but rather the 
gnawing of an inward discontent, which never 
dies, and often I have thought its source lay 
deeper than mere worldly disappointment. 
Perhaps her marriage was unfortunate, she 
will not speak of it, she sternly avoids it, and 
to Jaspar her son she shows less affection than 
even to me. Perhaps — But alas ! Do not 
mystery and mischance environ me and gird 
me round ? My whole history is a riddle, 
which he were a cunning seer that could read 
me ! Disquietude of conscience my unhappy 
relative may have or not, disquietude of some 
kind she too evidently has. No system of cir- 
cumstances, no scene, no circle of society can 
long please her, nowhere can she take up her 
permanent abode, but she wanders from place 
to place seeking that rest which she knows be- 
forehand is not to be found. Of late years her 



1 88 WOT TON REIN FRED, 

misery seems increasing, there are times when 
she shrinks from human presence ; for days she 
will sit secluded in her room, refusing all sym- 
pathy or trustful communication, and her look 
when it falls on you is cruel and cold. Poor 
lady ! Her heart will break one day, for she 
is too strong-willed to end in madness. 

'* My native place and hers is this North of 
England, but directly on the death of my par- 
ents she retired with me to Vevey in Switz- 
erland, where she had before resided. Thus 
French became a second mother-tongue to 
me, and the Leman Lake and the wild mount- 
ains of Savoy are the earliest scenes of my 
memory. Our way of life here was sombre 
enough ; except with certain clergy of the 
place, and one or two sedate persons chiefly 
of literary habits, my aunt had no society ; the 
English travellers of whom many passed, she 
carefully avoided, nay repelled if they sought 
her. Jaspar was not with us but in England 
at a boarding-school ; one grave old woman 
was our only servant. Yet this solitude was 
not lonesome to m.e, nor with all my little 



WOT TON REIN FRED. igo 

griefs did I feel myself unhappy. What wealth 
is in childhood, how that morning sun makes 
a very desert beautiful ! One has yet no con- 
sciousness of self, one is a thought, an action, 
not a thinker or an actor. They praised me 
for diligence at school, the whole world was 
indeed a school to me, where day after day I 
was learning new wonders, and forming new 
ties of love. What joy when I could escape 
to bound over the meadows with my little sis- 
ter maidens ! But still deeper joy I felt when 
in solitary castle-building I shaped out the fu- 
ture, and saw myself not a princess with kneel- 
ing knights — no, no ! — but a Corinna, a poet- 
ess, an intellectual woman ! For towards this 
goal, whether by natural temper, or the influ- 
ence of our literary visitors, my whole soul 
was already bent. Blame not my mad whim ! 
I cannot blame it, though I know its empti- 
ness ; this poor vision has come before me in 
its brightness, and been a city of refuge to my 
soul in all troublous seasons. Vevey is still 
dear to me, and the great Mont Blanc with 

his throne of glacier-rubies still visits me in 
13 



IQO WOT TON REIN FRED. 

sleep and shines in the background of many a 
dream. 

" It was not without bitter tears that I left 
this first home and all that I had ever loved 
or known in life. But I was now in my twelfth 
summer, and my tears soon dried, for England 
and London were before me. What a world 
of hopes ! England the land of my nativity, 
where in some lone churchyard, which I often 
figured, were the graves of my parents, over 
which I should indeed weep, but tears so soft 
and blessed ! London, the city of wonders, 
where I was to see and learn so much ! My 
heart leapt at the thought ; in spite of all per- 
versities, caprices, nay cruelties, I was the hap- 
piest little soul alive. Not so my aunt ; her 
gloom seemed to deepen as she approached 
the English shore, and I was more than once 
reminded that but for me and my interests she 
would not have set foot on it again, but in 
kinder hours she told me I might now be hap- 
pier, if I were good ; I was to complete my 
learning, by and by I should meet friends, 
be introduced to society, of which, however, I 



WOT TON REIN FRED. jqi 

ought rather to beware than expect much 
good. I was too young to understand her 
fully, but my images of danger and enjoyment 
were alike gorgeous and almost alike attract- 
ive, and her ideas I still rocked to and fro on 
the wildest waves. 

" London fulfilled neither my expectations 
nor hers. The deafening, never-ceasing tu- 
mult of that monstrous city, its aspect of 
power and splendour for a while intoxicated 
me, but the charm of novelty wore off, and I 
looked back to my little room at Vevey, and 
its book-shelves and rose-festoons and studious 
quiet seemed doubly precious. Of masters I 
had abundance, but they taught me only fe- 
male accomplishments, and what I most want- 
ed was knowledge. In public our relations, 
gay, grand people, saw me and caressed me, 
but I soon found that their kindness was from 
the lips only, Avhile in secret at home I had 
more to suffer than ever. My aunt had be- 
come a stranger among her kindred, in every 
circle her place had long ago been filled up, 
or rather in so many years of absence the cir- 



IQ2 WOT TON REIN FRED. 

cle itself had disappeared, and now she saw 
herself superfluous, nay it may be regarded 
with distrust, for her way of life had long been 
involved in a certain mystery, from which it 
was not difficult for many to draw spiteful in- 
ferences. She felt all this and smarted under 
it in her proud spirit. I too was unhappy. 
Alas ! I was now awakening to life, I was now 
looking on the world with my own eyes, and 
sad enough were my surveys and forecastings ! 
I saw myself alone ; I saw my aunt, as she was, 
desolate, gloomy, if not malignant ; sometimes 
I secretly accused her, sometimes I almost 
hated her, this aunt that had been a mother to 
me. I was still gay, sportful, but no longer 
from the heart, which, when I thought of it, 
was often full of fear and sorrow. The future 
lay before me, so vast, so solemn, and often all 
gloomy ; except in my darling vision, my old 
dream of intellectual greatness, I had no 
strength or stay, and this was but a trembling 
hope which T hid from every one almost as a 
guilty thought. The fate of literary women, 
the ridicule I saw cast on them had grieved 



WOTTON REINFRED. IQ3 

me deeply, yet in the end nowise effaced my 
first project ; nay perhaps, for there is a spirit 
of contradiction in us, rather added strength 
to it. Foolish girl ! But soon I had more 
pressing matters to reflect on. 

" We left London finally after a residence 
of three years ; my aunt mortified and dis- 
dainful ; I neither glad nor sorry at the 
change which, indeed, I foresaw would not be 
lasting, for dissatisfaction and unrest had now 
taken firm hold of my unhappy relative ; she 
had ceased to be devout, she was at once vio- 
lent and aimless, and bad days seemed to 
await me beside her wherever we might live. 
It was in the south of Wales, whither a pleas- 
ant situation and some distant connections in 
the neighbourhood had invited her, that we 
next settled. Our way of life here you can 
figure : why should I trouble you with the 
poor repetition of frivolity and spleen which 
with only superficial varieties now this now 
that new abode has witnessed ? One circum- 
stance there is, however, which makes these 
scenes for ever memorable to me. It was 



194 WOTTON REINFRED, 

here that I first saw the being whom I may 
justly call my evil genius ; for since that hour 
his influence has pursued me only to my hurt, 
and still hangs like a baleful shadow over my 
whole life. Oh, my friend ! This man, this 
demon ! Why did he ever behold me ? Why 
must the black, wasting whirlwind of his life 
snatch him into its course ? But I will be 
calm. 

** Edmund Walter, the first time I saw him, 
thought right to treat me with a distinction 
which could not but be visible to everyone. 
It was a rather numerous assembly : Walter 
was among the cynosures of the night, and 
perhaps the poor bashful girl was somewhat 
envied such attention. In my own mind, God 
knows, it caused little joy : on the contrary, 
this man with all his pomp and plausibility of 
aspect was positively distressing to me, or if 
I had for the moment some touch of female 
vanity in his flatteries, I received them but as 
fairy-money and with a half-criminal feeling, 
for dread and aversion, as to a wicked soul, 
were my impressions of him from the first. 



WOT TON REINFRED. igj 

My impressions, however, it appeared, were 
not to regulate our intercourse ; nay, perhaps 
this indifference, this repulsion, accustomed 
as he was to prevail over all hearts, rather 
piqued him into new assiduity. He followed 
me, at least — followed me from that hour with 
continual civilities, the more questionable as 
they could not be rejected, for so dextrously 
did he go to work that his conduct expressed 
at once everything and nothing, wavered like 
a changing colour ; seen on this side, all soft- 
ness and beguilement ; on that, mere acquaint- 
anceship and common social courtesy. With 
such craft was he studying to spin his nets 
about me, but it profited him little. If for 
moments I might trust to the voice of his 
charming, and feel only that a person of such 
talents and commanding energy was profit- 
able as a transient companion, especially to 
one who had so few that could instruct her in 
aught, I failed not with all my inexperience to 
see habitually what and how dangerous was 
our true relation, nay, the more his conver- 
sation pleased, instructed, fascinated me, the 



196 WOT TON RE IN FRED, 

stronger in my mind grew a dim persuasion 
that he was selfish and v/orthless, that it be- 
hoved me to break off from him, once for all 
to be open and decided and, with whatever 
violation of ceremony, for ever forbid him my 
presence. This, indeed, had I been mistress 
of my own actions, I should have done. 

*' But my aunt said nay, and my part was 
submission. Her conduct in regard to this 
man had all along been a puzzle to me. At 
first she vehemently objected to him, received 
his visits with coldness, sometimes scarcely 
even v/ith a polished coldness; it was plain 
that she watched for opportunities of hurting 
him — that she strove, by all means short of 
open incivility, to harass him into retreat. 
Nevertheless, he was not to be so baffled : 
with a strange patience he submitted to her 
injuries, or by cunning turns of courtesy 
evaded them, and so persevered with a thou- 
sand wiles in paying court to her, that by de- 
grees he insinuated himself into tolerance, 
nay, ere long into highest favour. By what 
new arts he had effected this I knew not, but 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. igy 

SO it was, for the two were evidently on the 
most trustful footing ; they had private inter- 
views, the purport of which I did not learn ; 
only I could see by abundant symptoms that 
secrets were between them — secrets of what 
they reckoned weighty import, and from which 
it seemed I was to be carefully shut out. 

*' This mystery surprised and sometimes 
alarmed me ; I hate mystery at all times, and 
in the present case I had signs that it con- 
cerned myself. My aunt had now changed 
her dialect with regard to Walter; she no 
longer spoke of him with bitterness, but zeal- 
ously, with affection, nay, with admiration. 
She daily introduced the topic ; asked my 
opinion of this and that feature in his char- 
acter ; defended him where I disliked, and 
warmly confirmed my judgment when it was 
favourable. She descanted at large on his 
looks, his talent, his manliness of mind ; the 
polished strength, the elegance, the perfect 
nobleness of his whole bearing — in short, 
whatever quality she knew me to approve of, 
with that in full measure she strove to invest 



ipS WOT TON REINFRED. 

him. I had much to object ; I failed not to 
point out in contrast her own prior view of 
him. She owned that she had been mistaken ; 
a fair outside was not always a false one ; she 
understood this man better than I and could 
answer for his integrity, nay, more, for his in- 
tentions towards myself, which she had at first 
doubted, but now knew to be generous. As 
she saw me shrink from such applications, she 
did not pursue them, but talked in general of 
the charms of wealth and high station, and 
how precious it was to be loved for one's own 
sake. The drift of all this I could not but di- 
vine ; in fact, her whole being seemed pos- 
sessed with the project ; a glad animation 
sparkled in her looks when she spoke of it, a 
hope and ardour such as I had never seen 
there before. 

" Of my own feelings on the matter I could 
give little account. By such influence, with 
which his own treatment of me skilfully co- 
operated, a sort of false glory had been 
thrown round this man ; yet surel}^ thought 
I, this is not love ? For I felt, or might have 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. jgg 

felt, that I feared and did not trust him, that 
we were still divided, must for ever be di- 
vided. The thought of wedding him was 
frightful to me, but his asking me to wed him 
seemed a thing, with all the hints I had heard 
of it, so utterly unlikely that it gave me little 
trouble. On the whole I was mazed, dazzled, 
and knew only that in this bewilderment I 
knew nothing. 

*' Walter disappointed my calculations ; in 
a letter full of cunning rhetoric he declared 
himself my lover, and offered me his hand ; 
my aunt had already given her consent, and 
he waited only for mine to be the happiest of 
living mortals ! What could I do ? what could 
I say ? I wept and sobbed, for there was a 
fearful contradiction within me. On the one 
side lay a life of dependence and chagrin, now 
threatening to become more galling than 
ever, without sympathy, without a friend, but 
one relative whom by my refusal I should bit- 
terly afflict, nay, as it seemed, I should rob of 
her last earthly hope ; and here, on the other 
side, stood the tempter, bright and joyful, 



200 WOT TON REINFRED. 

stretching forth his hand and beckoning me 
with smiles to a scene so different ! A man 
who loved me, of so many graces, too, and 
really splendid endowments ! For some in- 
stants I could have yielded, but a secret 
voice, in tones faint, yet inexpressibly earnest, 
warned me that he was false and cruel, that 
it should not and must not be. This warning 
I at last resolved, come what come might, to 
obey. 

" After two sleepless nights, and days ex- 
posed to a thousand influences of intreaty, 
menace, and persuasion, I rose with a decid- 
edness of purpose such as I had never before 
felt ; briefly, in words as distinct as were con- 
sistent with politeness, I penned my refusal, 
and, without speaking a word, laid the note 
before my aunt. Contrary to expectation she 
showed no anger, but only sorrow ; she wept 
and kissed me ; said that my happiness was 
hers ; that if I so wished it, so it should be. 
Such tenderness melted me ; I burst into tears 
and expressed in passionate language my un- 
happiness at distressing her. She renewed 



WOT TON RE IN FRED. 20I 

her caresses and encouragement, only at the 
same time hinting as a question ; if perhaps 
my note was not too vigorously worded ? 
Why should we offend a man so powerful, so 
friendly to us? Were it not better if I ex- 
cused myself on simply the score of youth, 
and, without peremptory denial, left the mat- 
ter to die away of itself and Walter to change 
imperceptibly by force of time from a lover 
into a friend ? Eager for conciliation, glad by 
any means to purchase peace for the present, 
I consented ; in an unlucky hour the new let- 
ter was written and despatched ; and so the 
evil which I should have fronted when it 
came, postponed into vague distance, where 
it gathered fresh wrath against me for a 
future day. 

" Walter renewed his visits almost as if 
nothing had happened, only glancing once 
and from afar at the occurrence, to which he 
adroitly contrived to give a light turn, so that 
matters soon settled on their old footing, and I 
blessed myself that the storm was blown over. 
Of love for me he had never spoken and did 



202 WOTTON REINFRED. 

not now speak, but strove rather with all his 
resources, which were nowise inconsiderable, 
to make our conversation generally interesting 
and profitable in particular for my intellectual 
culture, which he saw well was the object I 
had most at heart. By such means my suspi- 
cions were certainly quieted if not dispersed ; 
I again began to look on him with some 
degree of satisfaction, at least, with thankful- 
ness for what he taught me ; nor could I hide 
from myself that dubious, nay, repulsive as his 
inward nature might appear to me, I had seen 
few men of such endowments, few who had 
so quickened my faculties, and though with 
somewhat alien influence, given me so many 
new ideas and so much incitement to improve. 
*' In this favourable mood he left us, his 
regiment being ordered to the North, where 
it was to be reduced, perhaps broken. He 
took his leave quietly, with friendliness, but no 
show of tenderness, and in the manner of a 
man who hoped yet without anxiety to meet 
us again. War, he observed, was a trade for 
the present as good as ruined, and of which at 



WOT TON REIN FRED. 203 

any rate one would in time grow tired ; he 
had thoughts of slackening his connection 
with the army and settling on his own soil ; 
who knew but the Cincinnatus, when his 
sword had become a ploughshare, might 
tempt his fair hostesses to a long journey, or 
at least meet them in their wayfarings and re- 
new the memory of so many happy days ? In 
this fashion we parted ; with my aunt he was 
in dearer esteem than ever; even I could not 
but wish him good speed, and sometimes 
afterwards not without regret contrast his 
sprightly sense with the laborious, often mali- 
cious, inanity of most that remained in my 
sphere behind him. 

" A brisk correspondence had commenced 
between my aunt and Walter, in which she 
seemed to find her chief, or rather, sole pleas- 
ure, for ever since his departure a double dis- 
content had settled over Ipjr. About this time 
Jaspar, her son, paid us his first visit ; a gay, 
rather boisterous, but on the whole true- 
hearted young man ; with him, as with the 
only one of my relations who had ever shown 



204 WOT TEN RE IN FRED. 

me much affection, I by degrees established a 
pleasant friendship, which has remained un- 
broken through various vicissitudes, and nov/, 
indeed, forms my last confidence in the fu- 
ture. His regiment had returned from India, 
where he had fought and wandered, of all 
which he had much to tell us, or rather, to tell 
me, for his mother manifested little interest in 
this or aught that concerned him, and, strange 
as it may seem, her own only child had now 
come to see her, for the second time since in- 
fancy, not by her solicitation, but by her con- 
sent, and that unwillingly bestowed. Of these 
things he sometimes complained to me, yet 
with pity towards his mother rather than with 
anger ; indeed, my cousin is of so jocund, buoy- 
ant a temper that nothing painful abides with 
him. 

" Walter he knew by old acquaintance ; 
they had been fellow-students at the military 
college, but as Jaspar spoke of him with dis- 
like, the mother, to avoid quarrels, rarely 
mentioned this subject, and to me it was now 
become well-nigh indifferent. Jaspar and I 



WOTTON REIN FRED. 205 

had family concerns and much that interested 
both to talk of. On the history of my par- 
ents he could throw no light, but he won- 
dered with me at my aunt's mysterious si- 
lence ; encouraged me under so many pain- 
ful circumstances, and often with unusual 
warmth declared that he would be a friend 
and brother to me always, befal what might. 
I had never had a brother, but I felt towards 
this man something like what a sister may 
feel. Undistinguished by any great quality, 
nay, with many faults and a certain coarse- 
ness of nature, he was good and kind to me, 
and in his company I felt so glad and safe, so 
affectionate yet so calm ! These five weeks 
flew away too quickly ; my new brother left 
us and I again remained alone, my aunt by 
some unaccountable perversity refusing even 
to let me correspond with him. 

" Her days v/ere indeed become days of 
darkness ; she was wasting in unexplained 
sorrows; her soul wrapt up in mystery and 
often also in the terrors and mortifications of 

superstition ; she felt no hope in life, no sym- 
14 



2o6 WOTTON REIN FRED. 

pathy with the living. With the social circle 
of our neighbourhood she was displeased, her- 
self likewise displeasing, and had almost 
ceased to correspond ; except when she heard 
of this stranger, her face was seldom bright- 
ened with any smile. What I suffered from 
her why should I describe to you? But I 
foresaw that some change of place would 
soon follow, and with it perhaps some allevia- 
tion. Meanwhile I kept retired within my 
old fortress, where, quiet and diligent, I felt 
as if for the sake of knowledge I could suffer 
all this and much more. 

" What I had anticipated failed not to hap- 
pen. Early next spring we moved north- 
wards, and after a short residence among 
these fells, still farther northwards into Scot- 
land to the spot you know so well ! Dear 
land!" 



EXCURSION (FUTILE ENOUGH) 
TO PARIS; 

AUTUMN 1851 : 

THROWN ON PAPER, WHEN GALLOPING, 
FROM SATURDAY TO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4-7, 1851. 



Chelsea^ Oct. 4, 185 1. — The day before yes- 
terday, near midnight (Thursday, Oct. 2) I re- 
turned from a very short and insignificant ex- 
cursion to Paris ; which, after a month at 
Malvern Water-cure and then a ten days at 
Scotsbrig, concludes my travel for this year. 
Miserable puddle and tumult all my travels 
are, of no use to me, except to bring agitation, 
sleeplessness, horrors and distress ! Better 
not to travel at all unless when I am bound to 
it. But this tour to Paris was a promised 
one ; I had engaged to meet the Ashburtons 
(Lord and Lady) there on their return from 
Switzerland and Homburg, before either party 
left London : the times at last suited ; all was 



Copyright, 1891, by D. Appleton and Company. 



208 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 

ready except will on my part ; so, after hesi- 
tation and painful indecision enough, I did re- 
solve, packed my baggage again, and did the 
little tour I stood engaged for. Nothing 
otherwise could well be more ineffectual, 
more void of entertainment to me ; but, in 
fine, it is done, and I am safe at home again. 
Being utterly weary, broken-down, and unfit 
for any kind of work, I will throw down my 
recollections of that sorry piece of travel, then 
fold the sheet or sheets together, and dismiss 
the business. Allans done. I will date, and be 
precise, so far as I am able. 

Monday, Sept. 21. — Brother John still here ; 
he and I went to Chorley to consult about 
passports, routes, conditions, the journey be- 
ing now, and not till now, resolved upon. 
John was to set out for Yorkshire and Annan- 
dale on the morrow, and so had special busi- 
ness of his own to attend to. For me Chor- 
ley recommended the route by Dieppe and 
Rouen ; got me at the Reform Club a note of 
the packet and railway times (the former of 
which proved to be in error somewhat) ; could 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 209 

say nothing definite of passports. We are 
consulting Elliott at the Colonial Office. I 
was instantly taken across to the Foreign Of- 
fice, close by in Downing Street, and there for 
"js. 6d. got a passport, which, in spite of ru- 
mours and surmises, proved abundantly suffi- 
cient. Did no more that day that I can re- 
member. Next morning early John awoke 
me, shook hands, and rapidly went, leaving me 
to my own reflections and opposite of 

the sky. How we come and go in this world ! 
A rumour had arisen that my passport would 
require to be visaed (if that is the word) ; that 
I must go to the City for this end ; that, etc. : 
I called on Chorley to consult ; Chorley, his 
old mother having fallen suddenly ill, could 
not get away to see me even for a minute : 
laziness said, however, " Not to the Cit}^ 
don't ! " At Chapman's shop, I learned that 
Robert Browning (poet) and his wife were 
just about setting out for Paris : I walked to 
their place — had during that day and the fol- 
lowing, consultations with these fellow pil- 
grims ; and decided to go with them, by 



2IO EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

Dieppe, on Thursday ; Wednesday had been 
my original day, but I postponed it for the 
sake of company who knew the way. Such 
rumours, such surmises ; the air was thick 
with suppositions, guesses, cautions ; each pub- 
lic office (Regent's Circus, Consul's House, or 
elsewhere), proclaimed its own plans, denying^ 
much more ignoring, that there was any other 
plan. For very multitude of guide-posts you 
could not find your way ! The Brownings, 
and their experience and friendly qualities, 
were worth waiting for during one day. 
Thursday, September ^^, at lo A. M., I was to be 
at London Bridge Railway Station ; there in 
person with portmanteau, and some English 
sovereigns : das Weiter wiirde sick geben. 

Up accordingly on Thursday morning, in 
unutterable flurry and tumult of humour, — 
phenomena on the Thames, all dreamlike, one 
spectralism chasing another ; to the station in 
good time ; found the Brownings just arriving 
which seemed a good omen. Fare to Paris, 
22J., wonderful ; thither and back " by return 
ticket" was but ^i \2s. according to this 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 21I 

route — such had been the effect on prices of 
this '* Glass Palace," and the crowds attracted 
towards it. Browning v/ith wife and child 
and maid, then I, then an empty seat for 
cloaks and baskets, lastly at the opposite end 
from me a hard-faced, honest Englishman or 
Scotchman, all in grey and with a grey cap, 
who looked rather ostrich-like, but proved 
very harmless and quiet: this was the load- 
ing of our carriage, — and so away we went, 
Browning talking very loud and with vi- 
vacity, I silent rather, tending towards many 
thoughts. To Reigate the county was more 
or less known to me. Beautiful enough, still 
green, the grey, cool light resting on it, oc- 
casionally broken by bursts of autumn sun. 
Some half-score miles from Brighton our road 
diverges to the left ; we make for " New- 
haven," the mouth of a small sea-canal, divided 
from Brighton by a pretty range of chalk 
hills. Chalk everywhere showing itself, grass 
very fine and green ; fringings of wood not in 
too great quantity ; all neat, all trim, a pretty 
enough bit of English country, all English in 



212 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

character. Newhaven, a new place, rising- 
fast as " haven " to the railways : our big soli- 
tary inn, the main building in it ; other dwell- 
ing-houses, coal-wharves, etc., chiefly on the 
opposite side of the channel, a channel of 
green, clear sea-water, hardly wider than a 
river : everything in a state of English trim- 
ness, and pleasant to look upon in the grey 
wind while we had nothing to do but smoke. 
Browning managed everything for me ; in- 
deed there was as yet nothing to manage. 
Our company numerous, but not quite a 
crowd ; mostly French : operations (as to lug- 
gage, steamer, etc.) all orderly and quiet. At 
length perhaps about half-past one, P. M., we 
got fairly under way. — I should have said, a 
man with religious tracts^ French, German, 
English, came on board ; I took from him in 
all the three kinds (which served me well as 
w^aste paper) ; many refused, some (chiefly of 
the English) with anger and contempt. On 
the deck were benches each with a back and 
hood covered with well-painted canvas, im- 
penetrable to rain or wind ; these proved 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 213 

very useful by-and-by. Stewards' assistants 
enough ; especially one little French boy, in 
fine blue clothes and cap, who w^as most in- 
dustrious among his countrywomen ; bigger 
French gawky (very stupid-looking fellow 
this) tried to be useful too, but couldn't much. 
Our friends, especially our French friends, 
were full of bustle, full of noise at starting ; 
but so soon as we had cleared the little chan- 
nel of Newhaven, and got into the sea or 
British Channel, all this abated, sank into the 
general sordid torpor of sea-sickness, with 
its miserable noises, " Hoahah — hohh ! " and 
hardly any other amid the rattling of the 
wind and sea. A sorry phasis of humanity. 
Browning was sick, lay in one of the bench- 
tents horizontal, his wife, etc., below ; I was 
not absolutely sick, but had to lie quite quiet, 
and without comfort, save \xv one cigar for 
seven or eight hours of blustering, spraying, 
and occasional rain. Amused myself with 
French faces, and the successive prostration 
of the same — prostration into doleful silence, 
then evanition into utter darkness under some 



214 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

bench-tent whence was heard only the " Hoah- 
hah-hohh ! '* of vanquished despair. Pretty 
enough were several of them, not perfectly 
like gentlemeyi any one of them : — indeed that 
character of face I found of the utmost rarity 
in France generally. " Bourgeois," in clean 
clothes, if civil, rather noisy manner. One 
handsome man of forty, olive complexion, 
black big eyes and beard, velvet cap without 
brim, stood long wrapped in copious blue 
cloak, and talked near me ; at length sank 
silent and vanished. Other, of brown hair 
and beard, head wrapt in shawl, rather silent 
from the first, protruded his under lip 
in sick disgust, and vanished a little sooner. 
Third, of big figure, blind and with specta- 
cles, strikingly reminded me of Jeffrey of 
Cierthon (" Robin Jeffrey," long since dead) : 
he sat by the gunwale, spoke little, in prepara- 
tion for the worst, and staid there. Inside 
the tent-benches all was '' Hoahoh— hohh ! " 
and more sordid groaning and vomiting. 
Blankets were procurable if you made interest. 
■ Many once elegant Frenchmen lay wrapt in 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 215 

blankets, huddled into any corner with their 
heads hid. We had some sharp brief showers ; 
darkness fell ; nothing but the clank of the 
paddles, raving- of the sea, and *' Hoah-oh-ho- 
ahh ! " Our Scotch ostrich friend stood long 
afoot, hard as stick ; at length he too disap- 
peared in the darkness, and we heard him ask- 
ing about ^^ Dipe'' (Dieppe) whether it was not 
yet near. Hard black elderly man came to 
smoke on the gunwale seat, near me ; Cap- 
tain forbade, stopped him, long foolish con- 
troversy in consequence ; — this was in day- 
light, and the ostrich had assisted : now it 
was only *' Dipe ? " in the 7th or 8th hour from 
starting. At length lighthouses appeared, 
and soon the lighthouse at the end of Dieppe 
pier; and we bounded into smooth water, 
into a broad basin, and saw houses and lamps 
all round it. Towards nine P. M. by English 
time: — put your watch forward a quarter of 
an hour, for that is French time which you 
have to do with now. 

H6tel de I'Europe, near the landing place, 
proved to be a second-rate hotel ; but we got 



2i6 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

beds, a sitting-room, and towards lo P. M. some 
very bad cold tea, and colder coffee. Brown- 
ing was out in the Douane : we had all passed 
our persons through it, guided in by a rope- 
barrier, and shown our passports ; now 
Browning was passing our luggage ; brought 
it all in safe about half-past ten ; and we could 
address ourselves to desired repose. Walked 
through some streets with my cigar: high 
gaunt stone streets with little light but 
the uncertain moon's; sunk now in the pro- 
foundest sleep — at half-past ten. To bed in 
my upper room, bemoaned by the sea, and 
small incidental noises of the harbour ; slept 
till four; smoked from the window, grey 
cool morning, chalk cliff with caves be- 
yond the harbour — France there and no 
mistake. If France were of much moment 
to me ! Slept gradually again, a little while ; 
woke dreaming, confused things about my 
mother : ah, me ! At eight was on the street, 
in the clear sun, with my portmanteau lying 
packed behind me ; to be back for breakfast 
at nine. Dieppe harbour is the mouth of a 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 217 

river, broad gap in the general chalk cliffs 
(bounded to east by the chalk of "■ caves " 
aforesaid ; westward it stretches into a level 
doivii of some extent beyond H5tel de I'Eu- 
rope and the other houses) ; basin big, I know 
not how deep, has fine stout quays, draw- 
bridges, fevv^, very few ships ; range of high 
quaint old houses border it on two sides, the 
west (ours) and south where is a market of 
fish, etc., and then the main part of the town ; 
eastward is innocent fringed undulating green 
country (cliff of " caves ** goes but a short 
way inland), northward is the sea. Walked 
south, with early cigar, into the interior of the 
town. Good broad street with trottoirs, v/ith 
fair shops, and decent-looking population ; 
very poor several of them, but none ragged, 
their old clothes all accurately patched — a 
thrifty people. Ragpickers ; a sprinkling of 
dandies too ; London dandy of ten years ago, 
with hands in coat pockets, and a small stick 
rising out from one of them ! Bakers, naked 
from the waist, all but a flannel waistcoat and 
cotton nightcap ; horse-collar loaves and of 



2i8 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

other straighter cable shapes, all crust and 
levity. Streets of fair cleanness, water flow- 
ing in the gutters. Beards abundant. Rue 
d Ecosse : thought of old Knox, how he was 
driven to " Deap " and from it A chateau^ 
with soldiers, is in the place, the dow7t is forti- 
fied, and shows big cannon. Several big old 
churches ; many fountains, at one of which I 
drank by help of a little girl and her caraffe. 
Besides the chief street (continuation of our 
Hotel de I'Europe), there break off at least two 
others from the southern part of the harbour, 
and join with chief street in the interior ; one 
of these is Rue d'Ecosse, very poor and dead, 
which I did not far survey. Near the har- 
bour, between chief street and next, is a 
square, and general market-place (fruit, her- 
rings, etc.) ; big old church, new statue of 
Duquesnoy (?"ancien marin de cette vilie," 
said a snuffy, rusty kind of citoyen to me on 
my inquiry): a quaint old town of lo or 15,- 
000: fairly as good as Dumfries: immense 
roofs, two or sometimes three stories in them : 
many houses built as courts with a street door ; 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 219 

each house in its own style : all very well to 
look upon, and good for a morning stroll. — 
Breakfast was not much to brag of ; tea cold, 
coffee colder, as before ; butter good, bread 
eatable though of crusty-spoitge contexture. 
Browning and I strolled out along the quay 
we were upon, very windy towards the sea ; 
sheer chalk cliffs some mile or two off, dov/ns 
and scraggly edifices close by. House given 
by " Napoleon le grand " to somebody there 
named : we inquired of three persons in vain 
for explanation of the inscription legible 
there ; at length an old fisherman told us. 
The M. somebody had saved many persons 
from the sea: a distinguished member (or per- 
haps servant) of the Humane Society, which 
had its offices there within sight. Trts Men. 
An immense flaring crucifix stood aloft near 
the end of this quay : sentries enough, in red 
trousers, walked everywhere ; a country ship, 
with fresh fish, came bounding in : we strolled 
back to pay our bill, and get ready for our 
start to Paris. Browning, as before, did every- 
thing ; I sat out of doors on some logs at my 



220 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

ease, and smoked, looking over the popula- 
tion and their ways. Before eleven v/e were 
in the omnibus ; facing towards the Debarca- 
dere (rail Terminus), which is at the south-east 
corner of the harbour, a very smart, airy, but 
most noisy and confused place. 

Maximum of fuss ! The railway people, in- 
stead of running to get your luggage and self 
stowed away quhm primum and out of their 
road, keep you and it in hall after hall, weigh- 
ing it, haggling over it, marching you hither, 
then thither ; making an infinite hubbub. You 
cannot get to your carriages till the very last 
minute, and then you must plunge in head 
foremost. '' They order these matters worse 
in France ! " Browning fought for us, and 
we, that is the women, the child, and I, had 
only to wait and be silent. We got into a 
good carriage at last : we four, a calm young 
Frenchman in glazed hat, who was kind 
enough not to speak one word, and a rather 
pretty young lad}^ of French type, who smiled 
at the child sometimes, but sat thoughtful for 
the rest and did not speak either. There was 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 221 

air enough, both my window and the other 
down ; the air was fine ; the country beautiful ; 
and so away we rolled under good auspices 
again. 

This rail, all but the Terminus department, 
is managed in the English fashion, and carried 
us excellently along. Country of bright wav- 
ing green character, undulating, our course 
often along brooks, by pleasant old coun- 
try hamlets; many manufactures (spinning, I 
guessed), but of most pleasant, clean, rustic 
character ; wood enough on the hill sides, far 
too thick-planted ; stations not named, you can 
only guess where you are. " Junction " by 
and by — from Havre probably — an open space 
without buildings as yet : an altogether beau- 
tiful, long, manufacturing village town to the 
left near by; without smoke or dirt visible, 
trees enough — might really be a model in 
Lancashire ; the Glostershire railway scenes 
offer nothing much superior. Country all 
made of chalk, as in England (to near Paris, I 
think) ; fine velvet grass, meadow culture main- 
ly ; fine old humble parish churches ; wood 
15 



222 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

enough still, but twice or even thrice as thick 
as we allow it to be. Rouen in two hours : 
long tunnel, still stronger signs of cotton, 
bleaching, spinning, etc., then the big black 
steeples, thick heavy towers of cathedral and 
the rest — and here is Joan of Arc's last resting 
place and the scene of many singular things. 
Distinguished still by the clearness of its air, 
the trees and gardens and pleasant meadow- 
looking places, which extended to the very 
entrance. No smoke to speak of ; a lovely 
place compared with Manchester or the others 
of that region ! It is true the press of business 
seemed a great deal more moderate. Our 
railway station, roofed wath glass, was equal 
to the Carlisle one ; *' buffet " (refreshment 
room), etc., all in order ; and they let us smoke 
under conditions. In twenty minutes some 
other train got in to join us ; and we took our 
flight again through space. 

Country still chalk : we cross and again 
cross the Seine river, swift but not bigger- 
looking than the Thames at Chelsea : fine hills, 
fine villages, with due fringing of wood ; a 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 223 

really pleasant landscape for many a mile. 
Pass " Vernon," battle-scene of Convention 
with Charlotte Corday's people : not notable 
farther. Another town visible, all in white 
stone, and rural purity on my right. At 
Mantes we stop ten minutes ; fine houses with 
their French windows and blinds hung over 
our station : " Mantes, je crois. Monsieur ! " 
and away we go again. A " swift " method 
of travelling ; swift and nothing more ! The 
land, I observe, is all divided into ribbons ; pe- 
tite culture with a vengeance. Beans and le- 
giimes probably the chief growth. Ploughing 
shallow and ill-done : certainly the Seine val- 
ley, which ought to be one of the richest in 
the world, was not w^// cultivated, nor by this 
plan could it be. Copses are pretty frequent ; 
at length we get into vineyards. But still the 
ribbon subdivision lasts; pleasant to the eye 
only, not to the mind. Towards four P. M. see 
symptoms of approach to Paris : blunt height 
with something like a castle on it — guess to 
be St. Cloud : big arch of hard masonry to 
left of that — guess to be /^r^ de lEtoile : right 



224 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

in both cases. At length Paris itself (4 P. M.), 
and we are safe in the terminus at our set 
hour. 

Alas, it was still a long battle before our 
luggage could be got out; and a crowding, 
jingling, vociferous tumult, in which the brave 
Browning fought for us, leaving me to sit be- 
side the women. It is so they manage in 
France ; there are droits de Toctroi ; there 
are — in fine, there is maximum of fuss, and 
much ado about almost nothing ! Some other 
train was in the act of departing, as our poor 
women sat patiently waiting on their bench ; 
and all was very fidgetting and very noisy. 
I walked out to smoke ; one official permitted 
me, another forbade ; I at length went into the 
street and sat down upon a borne to smoke ; 
touters of hotels came round me : I am for the 
H6tel Meurice, inflexibly fixed ; de grace, Mes- 
sieurs, laissez-moi en paix ; which at last they 
did. Cigar ended, I went in again. Browning 
still fighting (in the invisible distance) about 
nothing at all. Our luggage visible at last 
upon a distant counter, then Browning visible 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 225 

with report of a hackney coach : we think it is 
now over ; rash souls, there is yet endless up- 
roar among the porters, wishing to carry our 
luggage on a truck ; we won't, they will : even 
Browning had at last grown heated ; at length 
I do get a cab for myself and little trunk, cer- 
tain French coins hastily from Browning, and 
roll away. Halt! Browning has my key, I 
have to turn back, and get it; happily this 
proves the last remover, and now I do get 
along and reach Meurice's — at five instead of 
four P. M. : Friday, the 25th September, 185 1. — 
And here, it being now two o'clock, and the 
sun inviting, I will draw bridle, and stop for 
the present day. 

A brisk, bright autumn evening as I rolled 
through the streets of Paris; recognise my 
route first on the Boulevard, still better in the 
Rue de la Paix and Place Vendome ; cigar 
nearly done, we are at the door of Meurice's 
in the Rue de Rivoli, a crowd of cabs and 
other such miscellanies loitering there. Con- 
cierge, old good-humoured v/oman with black 
eyes and clean cap, knows the number of the 



226 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

Ashburtons, knows not whether they are at 
home : my cabman, an old, poor, good-hu- 
moured knave of the whip, is defective in pe- 
tite momiaie^ at length by aid of the concierge 
we settle handsomely ; Mason, too, Lord Ash- 
burton's servant, appears, and I get aloft into 
my appointed bedroom, ** No. 22," a bare fan- 
tastic place, looking out into the street — bad 
prospects of sleep — though I am at the very 
top of the house for that object. Both Lady 
and Lord have gone out, not finding me at 
four as covenanted ; dinner is to be *' at six 
precisely." Walk on the streets, finishing my 
cigar ; dress, have melancholy survey of my 
bedroom ; dinner in the dim salle h manger^ 
seasoned with English news ; after dinner to 
the ThMtre Fran^ais, where Lord Normanby 
has been pleased to furnish us his box. Very 
bad box, " stage box,'' close to the actors ; full 
of wind-drafts, where we all took cold more or 
less. A clever energetic set of faces visible 
in stalls (far superior to such as go to Drury 
Lane) ; among them, pointed out by Lady 
Ashburton, who had met him, the figure 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 22/ 

of Changarnier. Strange to see such a man 
sitting sad and solitary there to pass his even- 
ing. A man of placid baggy face, towards 
sixty ; in black wig, and black clothes ; high 
brow, low crown, head longish ; small hook 
nose, long upper lip (all shaved), corners of 
which, and mouth generally, and indeed face 
generally, express obstinacy, sulkiness, and 
silent long-continued labour and chagrin. I 
could have likened him to a retired shop- 
keeper of thoughtful habits, much of whose 
savings had unexpectedly gone in railways. 
Thomas Wilson of Eccleston-street resembles 
him in nose and mouth ; but there was more 
intellect in Changarnier, though in a smoke- 
bleared condition. A man probably of con- 
siderable talent; rather a dangerous-looking 
man. I hear he is from Dijon, come of repu- 
table parliamentary people. Play was called 
La Gageure hnprevu^ or some such name ; 
worthless racket and cackle (of mistaken jeal- 
ousy, etc., in a country chateau of the old re- 
gime) ; actors rather good ; to me a very wea- 
risome affair. Lady Ashburton went to her 



228 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

mother's at the end of this; Lord Ashburton 
and I staid out a trial of the next piece, Maison 
de St. Cyr : actors very good here again, play 
wretched, and to my taste sadder and sadder — 
two rou^s of Louis XIV. time, engaged in se- 
ducing two Maintenon boarding-school girls, 
find the door of St. Cyr locked as they attempt 
to get out ; find at the window an Exempt 
^' de park roi^' are carried to the Bastille, and 
obliged to marry the girls : their wretched 
mockeries upon marriage, their canine liber- 
tinage and soulless grinning over all that is 
beautiful and pious in human relations were 
profoundly saddening to me ; and I proposed 
emphatically an adjournment for tea; which 
was acceded to, and ended my concern with 
the French theatre for this bout. Pfaugh ! — 
the history of the day was done ; but upstairs, 
in my naked, noisy room, began a history of 
the night, which was much more frightful to 
me. Eheu ! I have not had such a night these 
many years, hardly in my life before. My 
room had commodes, cheffoniers, easy chairs, 
and a huge gilt pendule (half an hour wrong) 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 229 

was busy on the mantelpiece ; but on the bed 
was not a rag of curtain, the pillow of it looked 
directly to the window, which had bateaus 
{leaves, not sashes), no shutters, nor with all 
its screens the possibility of keeping out the 
light. Noises from the street abounded, nor 
were wanting from within. Brief, I got no 
wink of sleep all night ; rose many times to 
make readjustments of my wretched furniture, 
turned the pillow to the foot, etc. ; stept out 
to the balcony four or five times, and in my 
dressing-gown and red night-cap smoked a 
short Irish pipe there (lately my poor moth- 
er's), and had thoughts enough, looking over 
the Tuileries garden there, and the gleam of 
Paris city during the night watches. I could 
have laughed at myself, but indeed was more 
disposed to cry. Very strange : I looked down 
on armed patrols stealthily scouring the streets, 
saw the gleam of their arms ; saw sentries with 
their lanterns inside the garden ; felt as if I 
could have leapt down among them — preferred 
turning in again to my disconsolate truckle 
bed. Towards two o'clock the street noises 



230 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 

died away ; but I was roused just at the point 
of sleep by some sharp noise in my own room, 
which set all my nerves astir ; — I could not try 
to sleep again till half-past four, when again a 
sharp noise smote me all asunder, which I dis- 
covered nov/ to be my superfluous friend the 
heterodox pendiile striking (all wrong, but on a 
sharp loud bell, doubly and trebly loud to my 
poor distracted nerves just on the act of clos- 
ing into rest) the half-\iQVir ! This in waking 
time I had not noticed ; this, and the pendule 
in toto, I now stopt : but sleep was away ; the 
outer and the inner noises were awake again ; 
sleep was now none for me — perhaps some 
hour of half stupor between six and seven, at 
which latter hour I gave it up ; and deter- 
mined, first, to have a tub to wash myself in ; 
secondly, not for any consideration to try 
again the feat of "sleeping " in that apartment 
for one. My controversies about the tub 
{paquet as I happily remembered to call it) 
were long and resolute, with several success- 
ive lackeys to whom I jargoned in emphatic 
mixed lingo ; very ludicrous if they had not 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 23 1 

been very lamentable : at length I victoriously 
got my paqicet (a feat Lord Ashburton himself 
had failed in, and which I did not try again 
while there) : huge tub, five feet in diameter, 
with two big cans of water, into which with 
soap and sponges I victoriously stept, and 
made myself thoroughly clean. Then out — 
out, thank heaven — to walk and smoke ; an 
hour yet to breakfast time. 

Rue de Rivoli had been mainly built since 
my former visit to Paris ; a very fine-looking 
straight street, of five or six storey houses, 
with piazza ; French aspect everywhere, other- 
wise reminding me of Edinburgh New Town, 
— and only perhaps three furlongs in length. 
Streets straight as a line have long ceased 
to seem the beautifullest to me. Population 
rather scanty for a metropolitan street ; street- 
sweeper, " cantonniers^' a few omnibuses with 
Passy, Versailles, etc., legible, a few strag- 
gling cabriolets and insignificant vehicles, — it 
reminded you of Dublin with its car-driving, 
not of London anywhere with its huge traffic 
and its groaning wains. Walkers anywhither 



232 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

were few. Tuileries Garden (close on my 
left) seemed to have grown bushier since my 
visit; the trees, I thought, were far larger; 
but nobody would confirm this to me when I 
applied to neighbours' experience. I did not 
enter Tuileries Garden yet : sentries in abun- 
dance ; uncertain whether smoking was per- 
mitted within; judged it safest to keep the 
street, — westward, westward. Place de la Rev- 
olution (Place Louis Quinze) altogether altered : 
Obelisk of Luxor, asphalt spaces and stone 
pavements, lamps all on big gilt columns, 
big fountain (its Nereids all silent) : a smart 
place, and very French in its smartness ; but 
truly an open airy quarter. Champs Elys6es 
woods (or brushwoods), broad roads, river, 
quais, all very smart indeed. Cross the 
bridge (Pont de la Concorde, I think, a new- 
looking bridge), Palais Bourbon or National 
Assembly House on the south side of it, — J^o^ 
I did not now cross these, I crossed by the 
next bridge eastward (Pont Royal), that was 
my route, so important to myself and man- 
kind ! Quais rather rusty and idle-looking 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 233 

river itself no great things either for size or 
quality, — bathing-barges mainly, and nothing 
very clean, or busy at all. Re-cross by the 
Pont des Arts ; Louvre getting itself new-faced, 
its old face new hewn, complicated scaffold- 
ings and masons hanging over it, — rather 
coburbbish in its effect. Much of the interior 
is getting pulled down ; Carrousel, Tuileries, 
Jardin des Tuileries, Palais Royal, etc., all 
looked dirty, unswept, or insufficiently swept, 
— the humble besom is not perhaps the chosen 
implement of France. Home at nine : all our 
party ill of cold. Lady invisible ; my room to 
be next night a much better, curtained and 
quite elegant, but still not quiet one, on this 
same floor (the third I think ; directly above 
the pillars and the first entresol), looking out 
into the interior court : there I will try again, 
one night at least. Lord Ashburton to see 
*' Museums " or some such thing with two 
French " gentlemen of distinction ; " I decline 
to go ; — lie down on a sofa, covering my face 
with a newspaper, address two stamped Gali- 
gnani's Journals to Chelsea, to Scotsbrig, and 



234 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

decide to do nothing whatever all day but lie 
still and solicit rest. Si fait ; — but very little 
rest may prove discoverable? I lay in one 
place at least, — having first made a call on the 
Brownings whom I found all brisk and well- 
rested in the Rue Michodiere (queer old quiet 
inn, Aux armes de la Ville de Paris), and very 
sorry for my mischances. After noon, Lord 
Ashburton returned, out to make calls, etc. ; I 
with him in the carriage, into the Payslatin 
and other quarters ; lazily looking at Paris, the 
only thing I care to do with it in present cir- 
cumstances. Did me good, that kind of " ex- 
ercise,*' the hardest I was fit for. Nimm Dick 
in Acht. — At 4 o'clock home, when two things 
were to be done : M. Thiers to be received, 
and a ride to be executed, — of which only the 
former took fulfilment. 

A little after 4 Thiers came. I had seen 
the man before in London, and cared not to 
see him again ; but it seemed to be expected I 
should stay in the room, so after deciphering 
this from the hieroglyphs of the scene, I staid. 
Lord and Lady Ashburton, Thiers and I : a 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 235 

sumptuous enough drawing-room, yellow silk 
sofas, pendules, vases, mirrors, turkish carpet, 
good wood fires ; dim windy afternoon ; voila. 
Royer-CoUard, we heard, once said : " Thiers 
est un polisson ; mais Guizot, c'est un dr61e?" 
Heigho, this Avas Prosper Merimee's account 
afterwards, heigho ! — M. Thiers is a little brisk 
man towards sixty, with a round, white head, 
close-cropt and of solid business form and 
size ; round fat body tapering like a ninepin 
into small fat feet, and ditto hands ; the eyes 
hazel and of quick, comfortable, kindly aspect, 
small Roman nose; placidly sharp fat face, 
puckered eyeward (as if all gravitating to- 
wards the eyes) ; voice of thin treble, pecul- 
iarly musical ; — gives you the notion of a frank 
social kind of creature, whose cunning must 
lie deeper than words, and who with whatever 
polissonnerie may be in him has absolutely no 
malignity towards anyone, and is not the least 
troubled with self-seekings. He speaks in a 
good-humuored treble croak which hustles it- 
self on in continuous copiousness, and but for 
his remarkably fine voice would be indistinct. 



236 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

— which it is not even to a stranger. " Oh 
bah ! eh b'en lui disais-j — " etc. — in a monot- 
onous low gurgling key, with occasional sharp 
yelping warbles (very musical all, and inviting 
to cordiality and laissez-aller), it is so that he 
speaks, and with such a copiousness as even 
Macaulay cannot rival. "Oh, bah, eh b'en!" 
I have not heard such a mild broad river of 
discourse ; rising anywhere, tending any- 
whither. His little figure sits motionless in 
its chair ; the hazel eyes looking with face 
puckered round them looking placidly ani- 
mated ; and the lips, presided over by the 
little hook-nose, going, going! But he is 
willing to stop too if you address him ; and 
can give you clear and dainty response 
about anything you ask. Not the least offi- 
ciality is in his manner ; everywhere rather 
the air of a bon enfant^ which I think really 
(with the addition of coqum) must partly be 
his character! — Starting from a fine Sevres 
vase which Lady Ashburton had been pur- 
chasing, he flowed like a tide into pottery in 
general ; into his achievements when minister 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 237 

and encourager of Sevres; half-an-hour of 
this, truly wearisome, though interspersed 
with remarks and questions of our own. 
Then suddenly drawing bridle, he struck into 
Association (Lord Ashburton had the day be- 
fore been looking at some ot the Associated 
Workmen) ; gave his deliverance upon that 
affair, with anecdotes of interviews, with po- 
litical and moral criticisms, etc. For me 
wenig zu bedeuten, but was good too of its 
kind. One master of Assoc(^es, perhaps a hat- 
ter, ''ruled like a Cromwell," — though by 
votes only ; and had banished and purged out 
the opposition party, not to say all drunkards 
and other unfit hands : tel regime de fer was the 
indispensable requisite; — for which, and for 
other reasons. Association could never suc- 
ceed or become general among workmen. 
Besides, it forbade excellence : no rising from 
the ranks there, to be a great captain of work- 
ers, — as many, six or seven of whom he named, 
had done by the common method. Then ap- 
plicable only to hatters, chair-makers, and 

tradesmen whose market was constant. Try 
16 



238 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

it in iron-working-, cotton-spinning, or the like, 
there arrive periods when no market can be 
found, and without immense capital you must 
stop. Good thing however for keeping men 
from chomagej for " educating " them in several 
respects. Thing to be left to try itself, — is not, 
and never can be, the true way of men's work- 
ing together. To all this I could well assent ; 
but wished rather it would all end, there being 
little new or important in it to me ! At length, 
on inquiry about Michelet (for whom I had a 
letter) we got into a kind of literary strain for 
a little. Michelet stood low in T.'s esteem as 
a historian ; lower even than in mine. Good- 
humoured contempt for Michelet and his airy 
syllabubs of hj^pothetic songerie instead of nar- 
rative of facts. " Can stand le Poete in his 
place; but not in the domain of truths": — a 
sentence, commented on and expanded ; Avhich 
indicated to me no great aesthic sovereignty 
on the part of M. Thiers, — leave him alone 
then! Our conclusion was, M. Michelet was 
perhaps a bit of a sot ; — M. Lamartine, who 
had meanwhile come in course too, being de- 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 239 

finable rather as 2i fat (a hard saying of mine, 
which T. with a grin of laughter adopted) : — 
and so we left Parnassus a la Frangaise ; and 
M. Thiers, who could not stay to dinner, took 
himself away. Our horses, in the meanwhile, 
had roved about saddled for two hours, and 
were now also gone. Nothing remained but 
to " dress for dinner," when at seven the two 
French gentlemen of distinction were ex- 
pected. 

Our two Distmgic/s were literary, one Meri- 
mee already mentioned, a kind of critic, his- 
torian, linguistically and otherwise of worth, a 
hard, logical, smooth but utterly barren man 
(whom I had seen before in London, with lit- 
tle wish for a second course of him) ; the other 
a M. Laborde, Syrian traveller ; a freer-going, 
jollier, but equally unproductive human soul. 
Our dinner, without Lady, was dullish, — the 
talk confused, about Papal aggression, etc., — • 
supported by me in very bad French (unwill- 
ingly), and in Protestant sentiments, which 
seemed very strange to my sceptical friends. 
Joan of Arc too came in course, about whom 



240 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

a big book had just come out : of De VAverdy, 
neither of our friends had ever heard ! In the 
drawing-room with coffee it was a little bet- 
ter : a little better : a little, not much ; at last 
they went away ; and I, after some precau- 
tions and preparations into bed, — where, in 
few minutes, in spite of noises, there fell on 
me (thank heaven) the gratefullest deep sleep ; 
and I heard or thought of nothing more for 
six hours following ! — so ends the history of 
Saturday, 26th September. Ay de mi ! 

Sunday morning, short walk again ; glance 
into the Champs Elys^es and their broad avenue 
with omnibuses ; — I had to return soon for 
breakfast. My good sleep, — though it ended 
at 5 A. M. and would not recommence, — had 
made me very happy in comparison. Break- 
fast, — badish always, tea and coffee coldy etc., 
the Hotel Meurice^ spoiled by English and suc- 
cess, in general bad, though the most expensive 
to be found in Paris. Lord Ashburton's bill 
(I incidentally learned) was about £a,^ a week, 
self. Lady Ashburton, and two servants, maid 
and man ! — After breakfast, came Lord Gran- 



EXCURSION TO PARIS, 24 1 

ville, talked intelligently about the methods of 
'' Glass Palace " (bless the mark !), — graphic 
account of Fox the builder thereof; once a 
medical student, ran off with master's daugh- 
ter, lived by his wits in Liverpool, lecturing 
on mechanics, etc., got into the railway ; be- 
came a railway contractor, ever a bigger and 
bigger one (though without funds or probably 
almost without), is now very great, — "ready 
to undertake the railway to Calcutta" at a 
day's notice, if you asked him : he built the 
glass soap bubble, on uncertain terms : — very 
well described indeed. A cleverer man, this 
Lord Granville than I had quite perceived 
before. After his departure, wrote to Chel- 
sea, to Scotsbrig; towards 2 went to walk 
with Herrschaft in the Tuileries Gardens ; 
Garden very dirty, fallen leaves, dust, etc. ; 
many people out : to Place de la Concorde, op- 
posite Lady Sandwich's windows (2, Rue 
Saint Florentin) where Talleyrand once dwelt. 
Lady Ashburton still suffering from cold, 
couldn't go to see her mother, v/ent driving 
by herself, — the last time she was out at all 



242 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

during my stay : — after a call by Lord Ash- 
burton and me at Lady S.'s we went, about 
3 P. M., to ride ; the Champ de Mars our first 
whitherward. 

Paris, Sunday :— All rather rusty ; crowds 
not very great ; cleanness, neatness, neither in 
locality nor population, a conspicuous feature. 
Ch. de Mars all hung round with ugly blankets 
on Pont-du-Jean side ; a balloon getting filled ; 
no sight except for payment. Against my 
will, we dismounted at another entrance, and 
went in. Horse-holder with brass badge, ve- 
hement against another without : ** Serjent de 
Ville ! " — at length he got possession of the 
horses, and proved a very bad *' holder." 
Dirty chaos of cabriolets, etc., about this gate : 
four or five thousand people in at half-a-franc, 
or to the still more inner mysteries, a franc 
each. Clean shopkeeper people, or better, un- 
expectedly intelligent — come to see this ! A 
sorry spectacle ; dusty, disordered Champ de 
Mars, and what it now held. Wooden bar- 
riers were up ; seats on the old height raised 
for Feast of Pikes, which is terribly sunk now, 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 243 

instead of " thirty feet " hardly eight or ten, 
without grass, and much of it torn away alto- 
gether. Grassless, graceless, untrim and sor- 
did, everything was ! An Arab razzia, with 
sad gurrous, and blanketed scarecrows of per- 
formers (perhaps 15 or 20 in all) was going 
on ; then a horse race ditto ; noisy music, 
plenty of soldiers guarding and operating. I 
moved to come away ; but just then they in- 
flated a hydrogen mannequin of silk ; his foot 
quivered and shook, he was soon of full size, 
then they let him off, and he soared majesti- 
cally like a human tumbler of the first grace 
and audacity, right over the top of the inflated 
balloon (I know not by what mechanism), per- 
haps 500 feet into the air, and then majesti- 
cally descended on the other side : none 
laughed, or hardly any except we. Off again ; 
find our horses with effort, — man wants two 
francs not one : (a modest horse-holder) ! We 
ascend the river side; dirty lumber on all 
sides of path : guingette (coarse dirty old 
house, dirty wooden balcony, and mortals 
miserably drinking) : — across by Pont de Gre- 



244 EXCURSION TO PARIS.. 

noble, into Passy, by most dusty roads, omni- 
buses, cabs, etc., meeting us in clouds pretty 
often, on each side to Auteuil, finally into 
Bois de Boulogne, which also is a dirty 
scrubby place (one long road mainly of two 
miles or so, with paltry bits of trees on each 
hand, and dust in abundance) ; there we 
careered along, at a sharp trot, and had 
almost all to ourselves, for nobody else ex- 
cept a walker or two, a cab-party or two at 
long intervals w^ere seen. Ugly unkept grass 
on each side ; cross-roads, one or two, turn- 
ing off into one knew not what ; I found it an 
extremely sober " Park ! " One of the " Forts " 
with great ugly chasms round it, on our left. 
At length we emerge again into Passy ; see 
the balloon high overhead, people in it wav- 
ing their hats, mannequin (shrunk to a monk- 
ey) hanging on below : a sudden wind then 
blew it av/ay, — for ever one was glad to think. 
Arc de TEtoile, some Hippodrome just coming 
out, and such a bewildered gulf-stream of peo- 
ple and cabs on the big road townwards as I 
never saw before ! Lord Ashburton cautioned 



EXCURSION TO PARIS, 245 

me to ride vigilantly, the people being- reck- 
less and half-drunk : crack, crack, gare ! gare 
h vous I it vv^as abundantly unpleasant ; at 
length I proposed setting off with velocity in 
the aggressive manner, and that soon brought 
us through it. Dirty theatre tea-gardens 
(where are singers, drink, etc.), with other 
more pleasant suburb houses, were nestled 
among the ill-grown trees, — why is this wood 
so ill-grown ? At the corner of Place de la 
Concorde, " Secour mix Blesses " stood painted 
on a signboard of a small house (police or other 
public house) ; a significant announcement ; 
rain was now falling. Many carriages ; al- 
most all shabby. One dignitary had two ser- 
vants in livery, and their coat skirts were hung 
over the rear of the carriage, to be rightly con- 
spicuous ; the gQvmsgentle7na7i (if taken strictly) 
seemed to me extremely rare on the streets of 
Paris, or rather not discoverable at all. Per- 
haps owing to the season, all being in the 
country ? Plenty of well-dressed men were on 
the streets daily ; but their air was seldom or 
never " gentle ' in our sense : a thing I re- 



246 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

marked. — Dinner of two was brief and dim ; 
^piir^es, what they are. After coffee, English 
talk ; winded up with {pbligato) readings of 
Burns, which were not very successful in my 
own surmise. — To bed, and alas ! no sleep, but 
tossing, fluctuating, and confusion till 4 A. M. ; 
a bad preparation for next day. 

Monday morning was dim, and at 7 I 
was again awake ; an unslept man. Walk 
through the old streets, eastward and north- 
ward. Rue Neuve des Petits Augustins, to 
Place des Victoires ; places known to me of old : 
contrast of feelings seven and twenty years 
apart : eheu, eheu ! The streets had all got 
trottoirs, the old houses seemed older and 
more dilapidated : crowds of poor-looking 
people, here and there a well-dressed man, 
going as if to his " office " (bourgeois, in clean 
linen and coat) ; very small percentage of 
such, and all smoking. Louis XIV. in PI. des 
Victoires : " Comment? *' said I to two little 
dumpy men in white wide-awakes : " Est-ce 
qu' on a laisse cela^ pendant la republique ? " 
They grinned a good-humoured affirmation. 



EXCURSION TO PARIS, 247 

Homewards by the Palais Royal ; said Palais 
Royal very dirty, very dim ; hardly anybody 
in it : new in the southern part ; Louis Phi- 
lippe's Palace made into an exhibition place for 
Arts et Metiers. Emerge then, after some wind- 
ings and returnings, into the Rue St. Honore ; 
heart of the old Louvre and Carrousel almost 
gutted out, block of half-demolished build- 
ings still standing ; very dusty, very dim, all 
things. In the narrow streets and poor dark 
shops, etc., such figures, poor old women, lit- 
tle children, the forlorn of the earth. " How 
do they live ? " one asked oneself with sorrow 
and amazement. — Catarrh general still in our 
party, catarrh or other illness universal in it. 
Better get home as soon as possible ? 

After breakfast, with Lord Ashburton to 
call on General Cavaignac, whom we under- 
stood to be in town, of all Frenchmen the one 
I cared a straw to see. Rue Houssaie where it 
joins as continuation to Rue Taitbotit, north 
from Boulevard des Italiens ; there in a mod- 
est-enough locality was the General's house. 
" Gone to the countr}^ (atix Depart ements)!' un- 



248 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

certain whither, uncertain when ; clearly no 
Cavaignac for us ! We drove away, disap- 
pointed in mind, tant soit peu. " Lift the top 
from the carriage, let me drive through the 
streets with you, and sit warm and smoke 
while you do business : " that was my pro- 
posal to Lord Ashburton, who gladly as- 
sented : agreed to wait at his " club " {Club of 
Frenchmen chiefly, and of some fitrangers, near 
the Boulevards, — quite " empty " at this time); 
home for a warmer coat, coachman and lackey 
to doff the carriage-roof : and after some wait- 
ing we all duly rally (at Rue de la Paix I, at 
said club Lord Ashburton) — and roll away 
eastward and into the heart of the city. 
Pleasant drive, and the best thing I could do 
to-day. Boulevards very stirring, airy, loco- 
motive to a fair degree, but the vehiculation very 
light. Looked at the exotic old high houses ; 
the exotic rolling crowd. Barriere St. Mar- 
tin ; turn soon after Into the rightward streets, 
shops, lapidary or other. Lord Ashburton has 
to call at ; I remain seated ; learn we are near 
the Temple ; decide to go thither. Old, 



EXCURSION TO PARIS, 249 

pale-dingy edifice, shorn of all its towers ; 
only a gate and dead wall to the street. 
Policeman issues on us as w^e enter ; stony 
eyes, villainous look, has never heard of Louis 
XVI., or his imprisonment here. " Non, mon- 
sieur!" — but from the other side of the gate 
comes an old female concierge who is fully 
familiar with it ; she, brandishing her keys, will 
gladly show us all. Building seems totally 
empty : a police station in some corner of it, 
that is all. Garde Mobile lived in it in 1848, be- 
fore that it was a convent (under the Bour- 
bons) ; Napoleon had already much altered it ; 
filled up {comblf) one storey of it, in order to 
make a piece cTeaii (not quite dry) in the gar- 
den. Old trees still up to their armpits there : 
a very strange proceeding for a piece d'eaii ! 
Damp, brown, and dismal, all these empti- 
nesses ; grass growing on the pavements ; big 
halls within (a grand royal hotel once, after 
the Templars ceased from it) ; on the second 
floor (once third ?) the royal /^-/^^/^-apartments, 
religiously kept, are still there. Marie An- 
toinette's oratoire ; the place of Clery's scene of 



250 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

adieu . a grim locality indeed ! Garde Mobile 
had drawn emblematic figures with burnt 
stick, in a few instances they had torn the 
walls, and made ugly big gaps with their bay- 
onets. Our old cocierge called the primitive 
republicans (in reference to Louis) ^' gueux,' — 
she seemed of royalist disposition, — cut us off 
a bit of room-paper for souvenir, accepted our 
three francs with man)^ courtesies, and so we 
left the Temple^ a memorable scene in one's 
archives. 

Bronze-dealer next, manufacturer rather, — 
the greatest {soi-disanf) de Vunivers : Lord Ash- 
burton in want of such things went in, I with 
him, and we walked through various long 
suites, of pendicles y statuettes, chandeliers , etc., — 
an ardent, greedy, acrid-looking person (he of 
'' Funivers ") escorting us ; almost frantic with 
the desire to sell, to a milord for money. A 
vehement lean creature, evidently of talent 
in his kind, and of an eagerness — I have 
not seen such a hungry pair of eyes. We 
bought nothing ; I would not have had a gift 
of anything I saw there, — the htsi de T univers : 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 25 I 

^^ tantis noil egeo ! " Out at last, and I decided 
not to enter any other, but to sit outside and 
smoke. Next place, a still finer bi'onze con- 
cern ; indisputably de I'univers, — but I wouldn't 
enter ; sat smoking pleasantly in an old quaint 
street (Quartier du Temple somewhere) for 
three-quarters of an hour, and bought a glass 
of vin ordinaire (id.) in the interim, and 
another for cocher, who seemed charmed 
and astonished. That suited me better than 
bronzes. But Lord Ashburton did buy a pen- 
dule and some fire or hearth apparatus here, 
all being so extremely good, and the chief 
man of the establishment, whom I soon after 
saw at the Hotel Meurice delivering his goods, 
seemed to me again a decidedly clever, saga- 
cious, courageous, broad and energetic man. 
Mem. I had been in a Bookseller s (on Saturday), 
the cut of whose face indicated some talent, 
and a similar sincerity of greed and eagerness. 
A reflection rose gradually that here, in the 
industrial class, is the real backbone of French 
society : the truly ingenious and strong men 
of France are here making money, — while the 



252 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

politician, etc., class is mere play-acterism, and 
will go to the devil by and by ! " Assuredly," 
as Mahomet says. — We returned by Marche 
des Innocens, by Rue St. Honore and many 
streets, which to look upon was a real drama 
to me, — so many queer stone objects, queer 
flesh-and-blood ones, seen just once and never 
again at all! Home about 5, to dine with 
Lady Sandwich at 7 ; I flung my self on bed, 
and actually caught a few minutes of sleep. 

Lady Sandwich's dinner was wholly in the 
French fashion, this was its whole result for 
me, — to see such a thing once. Company, be- 
sides us two who entered first : Marquis Villa- 
real, a thick Portuguese man with big hoary 
head, and boring black eyes (glitter of black 
glass), a sturdy man, long ambassador in Eng- 
land, — spoke English — had he had anything to 
say for me : M. and Mme. Thiers, madame a 
brunette of forty, pretty enough of her kind, 
an insignificant kind, hardly spoke with her; 
lastly, a Scotch Miss Ellice ('' Bear's ") ; and 
our two " distinctions," Merimee and Laborde, 
with a Comte (something) Roget, a poor thin 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 



253 



man with two voices, bass and treble alter- 
nating, who said almost nothing with either of 
them. Kickshaws, out of which I gathered a 
slice of undone beef, wines enough, out of 
which a drop of good sherry and tumbler of 
vin ordinaire ; talk worth nothing, tolerable 
only had one 7iot been obliged to manufacture 
French. Women 3.nd men together, all sud- 
denly rise from table, pushing back their 
chairs with fracas ; then to the drawing-room 
for coffee and talk with Thiers and Merimee, 
who said or could say nothing notable, heartily 
glad to get away, with twenty drops of some 
soporific liquid ("Jeremy " a laudanum prepa- 
ration) from the good old lady which was to 
make me sleep. Eheu ! — Merimee sat again in 
the drawing-room at Meurice's ; got upon 
German literature : " Jean Paul, a hollow fool 
of the first magnitude ; " '' Goethe the best, 
but insignificant, unintelligible, a paltry kind 
of scribe manqud (as it seemed) : " — I could 
stand no more of it, but lighted a cigar, and 
adjourned to the street. " You impertinent 

blasphemous blockhead ! " this was sticking in 
17 



254 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

my throat ; better to retire without bringing 
it out ! such was the sin of the Jews^ thought 
I ; the assay of so much that goes on still, 
" crucify him^ he is naught ! " — for which they 
still sell " old clothes." Good-humoured banter 
on my return in, Merimee being gone : then 
to bed, — and sleep, alas ! no sleep at all. A 
plunging and careering through chaos and 
cosmos, through life and through death, all 
things high and low huddled tragically to- 
gether; now in my poor room at Scotsbrig 
(so quiet there, beside my poor old mother !), 
now at Chelsea, now beyond the moon : I did 
not sleep till six, and then hardly for an 
hour, such the noises, such my nerves. The 
"Jeremy" (ten drops of it) had rather done 
me mischief, the other ten I poured out of 
window. Towards morning one practical 
thought rose in me, that I could get home 
again in a day ; that I had no work here, and 
ought to get home ! Out after eight, up Rue 
de la Paix, down towards Obelisk of Luxor 
again ; bought an indicateur des Chemins de Per, 
It was settled at breakfast that Lord Ashbur- 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 255 

ton should go with me on Thursday^ — the Lady 
to stay behind till Saturday, while her cold 
mended and then come. Ti-es Men. Lady 
Sandwich has a second dinner for us to-day ; 
out of which I apologise ; to dine simply at 
four, and will keep myself peaceably at home, 
[Pause here: have to go the Strand with an 
umbrella! Monday, 6 Oct., 185 1.] 

Tuesday, 30 September, after breakfast 
{theny I think) call on the Brownings, very sorry 
they that I am bound for home perhaps to- 
morrow, at any rate next day ; will come to 
them to tea " if possible." At Meurice's, Meri- 
mee again to take Lord Ashburton to some 
show of ancient armour : I decline to go ; stay 
there, and lounge in talk with Lady Ashbur- 
ton, who knits. "Attache to French Em- 
bassy," name forgotten or never known, thin, 
half - squinting, insignificant, brown - skinned 
young Parisian ; — I go out to call on Lady 
Sandwich ; dinner in prospect there, and lam- 
entations over my and everybody's sickness. 
Dine at 4, on frugal starved beef with one 
glass of sherry ; Lord Ashburton to dine be- 



256 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

low with certain Bruces (Lord Aylesbury's 
son and femme who is Sidney Herbert's sister) 
who are just come : enter said Lady Bruce, 
pretty but unhedeutend ; enter Bruce, big nose, 
English noisy say-nothing ; enter finally an 
Englishman who knows me, whom I cannot 
recollect to know, who proves at last to be 
Sherida7i (Mrs. Norton's brother) : talkee, talkee, 
nichts zu bedeuten. I withdraw to Browning's 
before seven. Great welcome there ; and tea 
in quiet ; Browning gives me (being cun- 
ningly led to it) copious account of the late 
"revolutions" at Florence, — such a fantastic 
piece of Drury-lane " revolution '' as I have 
seldom heard of. With all such " revolutions " 
may the devil swiftly fly away ! Home soon 
after ten ; remember nothing of what I found 
there ; — to bed, and happily get some reason- 
able sleep. Weather has now broken into 
showers. Lady Sandwich's dinner (an English 
party in honour of us) has consisted mainly of 
Sir (is he that ?) Henry Bulwer, whom I never 
saw and care little about seeing. 

Wednesday morning, damp walk ; Nero's 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 257 

collar and string (gift for my wife), at the top 
of Rue de la Paix : cigars a little farther on, 
one or two, — very bad^ dear as in England. 
Settled now that Lord Ashburton is to go with 
me to-morrow, through in one day ; the Lady 
to wait " till Saturday " when probably she 
will be able to follow. Tres bien. Donothing- 
ism for a while ; then out to see Champ de 
Mars again ; Hotel des Invalides by the way ; 
curious hazvker (in good clothes, like a kind of 
gentleman) selling steel pens on Pont Royal : 
he wrote like a Butterworth, — poor soul, no 
better trade ! Invalides and barracks in front 
near by very striking. Multitudes of blind old 
soldiers. Promenade des Aveugles ; place noth- 
ing like so clean as Chelsea ; cannons round it, 
chimmey tops, etc., shaped (I thought) like a 
kind of fantastic hehnets ; figure of Napoleon 
in inner court : — very well. Through dull 
streets, with some trees, to Ecole Militaire and 
grand review in Champ de Mars. Poor 
Champ de Mars, in a very dilapidated, un- 
swept, and indeed quite ugly condition ! Fed- 
eration " 30 feet " of mound is sunk to eight 



258 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

or ten (as I said above), is torn through in 
many places, is untrimmed, sordid everywhere, 
— the place (perhaps loo acres or more) is al- 
together dusty, disorderly, v/aste and ugly. 
If Federation slope were to be completed, 
trimmed, and kept green with the trees on it ; 
if miy order or care were shown. — But there is 
none of that kind, there or anywhere. What 
strikes you in all public places first is the dirt, 
the litter of dust, fallen leaves or whatever 
there may be. Review going on, worth little : 
finer men than common about the streets, with 
these strange <5^//(?z£/^-shaped red trousers (tight 
over the hips, tight at ancles, intermediately 
wide as petticoats), with their strait pinched 
blue coats and ridiculous flower-pot caps ; 
good middle-sized, well-grown men many of 
them ; they were marching, going on in detail, 
some resting, not many together anywhere: 
hardly worth above a glance or two. Passy 
and Chaillot looked very beautiful across the 
river. Troops now began to take up position 
and fire, — burn the Republic's gunpowder. I 
went my way ; inquired of an oldish soldier 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 259 

(not Invalid) about the populous heights to 
westwards : it was *' Sevres " ; St. Cloud not 
quite visible here ; this is the Pont de Jena (old 
soldier, very civil and talkative). I cross by 
Pont Jena; ascend through dirty little tea. 
garden groves into Passy, sit down there 
among wilderness of stones (new unused mason 
stones), and smoke, looking over a pleasant 
view of some wing of Paris, the noise from 
Champ de Mars growing louder and louder — 
to the waste of the Republic powder. Passy, 
Chaillot, suburban village street ; very quiet, 
in spite of an. omnibus or two; exotic of as- 
pect, worth walking alone. Arc de I'Etoile 
again ; still enough to-day when there is no 
Hippodrome. Rain begins in the Champs Ely- 
sees ; call on Lady Sandwich ; home to din- 
ner, by the arcades, in decided rain. Comte 
(something) Roget is there ; has been speak- 
ing of Abbes, Abbe Gondy, etc., is getting 
himself delicately quizzed, I perceive. ^' Jeu~ 
nesse dor^e^ jeunesse argentee, — des bottes," — in 
fine M. le Comte, who is a very weak brother, 
hastens to take himself away, feeling not at 



26o EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

ease here. Dinner {bad mutton-chop, — useless 
wretched " cookery " all along, to my poor ex- 
perience), then half dress a little, a dinner is 
to be here at 7. Thiers and the two inevitables 
(Merimee and Laborde) ; I decided to vanish 
to Brownings in the interim. At Brownings 
vague talk, kind enough ; take leave, and 
home soon after 9. Prints, I had been survey- 
ing two large batches of Bookseller's Prints, 
"' on approb ; " — marking the defects, etc. Did 
not go up to the three strangers all at once ; 
duly by degrees shook hands with the two 
inevitables (who staid late, clatter-clattering) ; 
Thiers, in about half an hour, glided out with- 
out any speech v/ith me. I am told that he is 
jealous that I respect him insufificiently ! Poor 
little soul, I have no pique at him v/hatsoever ; 
and of the three, or indeed of known French- 
men (Guizot included) consider him much the 
best man. A healthy human animal, with due 
braverism (high and low), due bulkinism, or 
more than due; in fine a healthy creature, 
and without any " conscience " good or bad. 
Whereas, Guizot — I find him a solemn in- 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 26 1 

triguant, an Inquisitor-Tartuffe, gaunt, hollow, 
resting on the everlasting No, with a haggard 
consciousness that it ought to be the everlast- 
ing Yea : to me an extremely detestable kind 
of man. So I figure him, — from his books and 
aspect, and avoided to speak with him while 
he was last here. Heaven forgive me if I do 
the poor man wrong ; practically I have only 
to avoid him, that is all. To poor Thiers I 
have sent compliments (if such be due at all) 
since my return ; part with him in peace. 

The inevitables are not interesting ; at 
length they go their ways : and now it palpa- 
bly turns out, Lord Ashburton is not going to- 
morrow morning, feels better, and ought to 
stay for Lady Ashburton ! Heavy news for 
my poor fancy (shuddering at a French jour- 
ney) ; but how could I deny that the measure 
w^as perfectly reasonable ; that, in fact, the 
poor ailing lady ought to have some escort. I 
must go myself, then ; must part and shave 
this night, be called to-morrow at 63/4 : " adieu, 
madame ! " Lord Ashburton walks with me 
while I smoke in Place Yendome : will see me 



262 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 

on the morrow (but doesn't) ; lends me two 
gold sovereigns : Good night ! Packing, shav- 
ing, fiddling hither and thither : it is past one 
o'clock before I get to bed ; and then there are 
many noises (some strange enough) to start 
and again start me : at length, in spite of fate^ 
sink into chaotic sleep, and lie so till Mason 
(" groom of chambers," valet long known) call 
me : quarter to 7 : up, and not a minute lost ! 
Thursday morning (2 Oct. 185 1). Swift, 
swift ! The little brown valet has coffee 
ready ; I can eat only a cubic inch of bread, 
h2ili-drmk a small egg; drink nearly all the 
hot milk : that is my five-minutes breakfast in 
the deadly press of hurry ; then into a fiacre, 
laquais de place volunteering to attend me, — 
and so away ! Early French streets ; some 
" Place de Lafayette " (so far as I could read), 
then Terminus, still in good time, — but such a 
bustle, such a fuss and uproar for half-an-hour 
to come! Tickets, dear (some £2 12^.), and 
difficult extremely, then sliding of 3^our lug- 
gage en queue along a lid counter (to be 
weighed), and quarrels about it; ohone. 



EXCURSION TO PARIS. 263 

ohone ! laquais and fiacre cost me 3% + I'A = 
5 francs. Luggage (mistaken, I believe after 
all) is r/2 franc -\- endless, maddening bothera- 
tion. At length you are admitted, hardly find 
a place ; and so away ! Eight of us inside : 
two John Bulls (one with tooth-ache and 
afraid of air); one fat Frenchwoman, very 
sad-looking ; then I, opposite, young John Bull, 
and snappish old-young English lady ; at the 
extreme right, two French exhibitioners : have 
to fight for air, but get it, — then hold my 
peace as much as possible : " Madame, cela 
finira ; cela ne durera pas a tout jamais ! '' We 
are quiet to one another, and no incivility oc- 
curs. " Auteuil," said my French neighbour 
on the right, an oldish, common-place, inno- 
cent man ; then " Montmorenci ; " country 
very beautiful here ; grows gradually less so ; 
** Pontoise," and still uglier fiat bare country, 
gradually after which quite flat, bare, ill- 
tilled and ugly, and so continues. " At Arras " 
(you can see nothing of it, or of anything : a 
mere open barren flat, and a meagre little bar- 
rack of a station-house built), get a bun and 



264 EXCURSION TO PARIS. 

glass of vin ordinaire, — this was all my food 
till England. " Amiens " (nothing visible) ; 
" Lille " (ugly waste station-house) : on, on, Oh 
let it end ! Country all flat; flax with ditches : 
haricots in upright bundles with a stick in 
each ; spade husbandry (man digging), careful 
culture hereabouts ; pleasant-looking villages 
on the higher ground towards the sea ; some 
trees, very feeble ; broad level railway course, 
often straight as a line : not one tunnel from 
Paris. Short battering shower or two, then 
again bright weather. Thank Heaven, Calais 
at last. Passport showing ; crowded bothera- 
tion, steamer overflowing (German, Italian, 
French), in the end we do get under way, — 
have seen nothing of Calais but the harbour 
and some of the steeple-tops: is not that a 
beautiful way of travelling ? 

Our passage was of two hours, rather 
pitching, cold wind, once a violent shower of 
rain : *' Hoahh — ohh ! " frequent and sordid ; 
couldn't think of smoking; stood mainly. 
Stewards abundantly humane ; one poor Ger- 
man lad half-dead ; two hundred of us or 



EXCURSION TO PARIS, 265 

more, — Dover in the damp, gusty twilight; 
and at length squeeze out. " Commissioner 
of Gun Tavern," one can get refreshment: 
along then ! Brandy and water and beef- 
steak, in the dirty coffee-room of Gun Tav- 
ern, — extremely welcome in fine, and benefi- 
cial. India captain talking as he ate, foolish 
old Lancashire steam machinist (from Lago 
Maggiore region) answering loudly, foolishly. 
Commissioner has done my trunk : '' two-franc 
piece " (what you please), — no likelihood of 
starting " for an hour yet," so mafiy are we. 
Get my wetted {iiot dried) topcoat. Some- 
body has stolen three good cigars ; happily 
nothing else. Station house, and place my- 
self; can't see trunk, have to believe it right, 
(and it proves so). Fat French woman lands 
beside me again. Young English -Belgian tour- 
ists (seemingly), three young men, one ditto 
woman : silly all, and afraid of air. Off, at 
last, thank Heaven ! By the shore, cliffs, and 
sea to Folkstone ; we have no lamp (so many 
in train), after Folkstone, thanks to beef-steak 
and extremity of fatigue, I fall asleep (never 



266 EXCURSION TO PARIS, 

the like in a railway before) ; half-waken 
twice, to pull down the window (which is 
always pulled up again straightway) ; awaken 
wholly, and it is London Bridge! Admira- 
ble silence, method and velocity here. They 
keep us standing some ten minutes, tickets 
got, trunks are all laid out^ in an enclosure 
under copious light ; " Tiens, je vois deja ma 
malle ! " exclaims Monsieur : as might I, and 
others. Near midnight, through muddy rains, 
am safe, home, — scarce credible! — and have 
as it were slept ever since. Oh the joy of be- 
ing home again, home and silent ! No Ash- 
burton come ^^/ .• weather wet. Finis, 7 Oct., 
1S51. 



LETTERS 

WRITTEN BY THOMAS CARLYLE 
TO VARNHAGEN VON ENSE 

IN THE YEARS i837-'57. 
EDITED BY RICHARD PREUSS. 



The letters here published for the first time 
do not require more than a few introductory 
words. Testimonies of Carlyle's mind and 
genius, they speak for themselves. 

The originals have been found among the 
manuscript treasures of the Royal Library at 
Berlin, into whose possession the whole literary 
inheritance of Varnhagen — all this man, fond 
of collecting, had heaped up during a long life 
abounding in personal relations — came after 
his death in the year 1858. Of his own letters 
the author, otherwise so careful in such matters, 
took no copies ; it is to be doubted whether it 
will be possible to find the originals ; even to 
be doubted whether they exist at all. 

Copyright, 1S92, by D. Appleton and Company. 



268 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

It was a happy idea of Varnhagen to send, 
in the year 1837, ^he first four volumes of his 
collection entitled Denkwurdigkeiten meines Le- 
bens over the sea to Carlyle. It seems that he 
wished to see them reviewed in England. At 
least Carlyle devoted to the Denkwurdigkeiten 
as well as to the former writings of Varnhagen, 
relating to his wife Rahel, a long essay in the 
London a7id Westminster Review (1838). But 
at a later period the connection became im- 
portant for both men. Since the death of 
Goethe, Carlyle's personal relations to Ger- 
many were almost confined to occasional and 
withal rare meetings with German men who 
lived in London. Even then there came, from 
time to time, letters and messages from Ger- 
many, but they were, as he wrote to Emerson, 
of no moment. When the message of Varn- 
hagen came, the French Revolution was about to 
be published, and the troubles of supervising 
the book in the press, as well as the first lect- 
ures then undertaken before a great audience 
about the German literature, may have re- 
tarded the answering of Varnhagen's letter. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 269 

As soon as leisure was given to him, he wrote. 
And so the apostle of German genius and Ger- 
man literature in England entered in direct 
connection again v/ith a German writer, and 
with the writer who, like no other, was in the 
very centre of the literary life in Germany 
then. Thence a correspondence arose, if not 
lively, yet continuous, which was maintained 
by occasional messages from both sides. Varn- 
hagen sent to Carlyle the new volumes of his 
Denkwilrdigkeiten and other German books 
which the latter was in need of, and Carlyle 
sent to Varnhagen his writings and autographs 
of English authors and public men, for auto- 
graphs became more and more the great pas- 
sion of Varnhagen. Twice the two men saw 
each other in the course of years : at first 
in 1852, then in 1858, not long before the death 
of Varnhagen, who has reported thereupon in 
his Journal^ both times at Berlin, where the 
historian of Frederick the Great was led b}^ 
the wish to see the life-places of his hero with 
his own eyes. Naturally the communications 
about his work upon the Life of Frederick 



2^0 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

take up, in the second part of these letters, the 
largest room. From the first shy appearance 
of the idea of venturing on this vast subject, 
we are enabled here to accompany the whole 
labour, the painful struggle with the strange- 
ness of the subject, with the continuous want 
of books and materials of all sorts, with the 
doubts resulting from the distance of the places 
of the narrated events. And surely our ad- 
miration is not lessened by comparing the final 
result with the difficulties of the execution, 
and we are enabled here to accompany him, 
as it were, throughout the task. 

To conclude, it is a most agreeable duty for 
me to express also here my hearty thanks to 
the friend and literary executor of Carlyle, 
James Anthony Froude, for his kind readiness 
in authorising me to publish these letters. He 
has added thereby a new service to the many 
which he has rendered to the memory of his 
great friend. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



I 



271 



5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London: December 31, 1837. 

My dear Sir, — Will you accept, after too 
long delay, my hearty thanks for your kind 
and estimable gift, which, a good many weeks 
ago, on returning hither out of Scotland, I 
found awaiting me here ? The name Varn- 
hagen von Ense was long since honourably 
known to me ; in the book Rakers Gallery, as in 
a clear mirror, I had got a glimpse of the man 
himself and the world he lived in; and now, 
behold ! the mirror-image, grown a reality, had 
come towards me, holding out a friendly right 
hand in the name of the ever dear to both of 
us! Right heartily I grasp that kind hand, 
and say again and again. Be welcome, with 
thanks. 

If it were suitable or possible to explain 
amid what complexity of difficulties, engage- 
ments, sicknesses, I struggle to toil along here, 
my slowness in answering would not seem in- 
excusable to you. I wished to read the book 
first. A book unread is still but the offer of a 
gift ; I needed first to take it into me, and then 
tell you with proper emphasis that it had in 
very truth become mine. Not till these late 
days was the leisure and the mood for such an 
enjoyment granted me. The two volumes of 
Denkwilrdigkeiten remained like a little kindly 
inn, where, after long solitary wandering in 



2/2 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



bad weather, I should find repose and friends. 
Once more I say to you, and now with proper 
significance, Many thanks. 

Insight, liveliness, originality, the hardy 
adroit spirit of a man who has seen and suf- 
fered and done, in all thing acquitting himself 
like a man, shines out on me, in graceful co- 
herence, light, sharp, decisive, from all parts 
of this as of your other books. It is a great, 
and to me a most rare, pleasure in these times 
to find that I agree wholly on all important 
matters with a writer ; that in many highest 
cases his words are precisely such as I should 
wish to hear spoken. But, indeed, your view 
of Goethe being also mine, we set out as it 
were from a great centre of unity, and travel 
lovingly together tov/ards all manner of re- 
gions. For the rest, nothing pleases me more 
than your descriptions of facts and transac- 
tions, a class of objects which grows contin- 
ually in significance with me, as much else 
yearly and daily dwindles away, in treating 
which a man best of all shows what manner of 
man he is. I read with special interest your 
Doctor Bollmann,* a name not altogether new 
to me ; I could read volume after volume of 

* The characteristic of Justus Erich Bollmann is to be found 
in the fourth volume of the Denkwilrdigkeiten und ver7nischte 
SchHften, by Varnhagen. There is also published an excellent 
essay about him by Friedrich Kopp in the Deutsche Rundschati, 
vol. xviii. (1879), entitled " Justus Erich Bollmann un die Flucht 
Lafayette's aus Olmtitz." 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 273 

such autobiography as that you give us — such 
Halle universities, such Battles of Wagram, 
such Fichtes, Wolffs, Chamissos, and the high, 
tranquil -mournful, almost magical spirit of 
your Rahel shining over them with a light as 
of stars ! You must not cease ; you must con- 
tinue. That we might see, eyes were given us ; 
and a tongue, to tell accurately what we had 
got to see. It is the Alpha and Omega of all 
intellect that man has. No poetry, hardly 
even that of a Goethe, is equal to the true 
image of reality — had one eyes to see that. I 
often say to myself, the highest kind of writing, 
poetry or what else we may call it, that of the 
Bible for instance, has nothing to do with fic- 
tion at all, but with behefs, with facts. Go on, 
and prosper. 

If you see Herr Criminaldirector Hitzig, 
pray remember me very kindly to him. Your 
friend Chamisso is also one I love. Dr. Mundt 
will mourn with me that the brave Rosen,* his 
friend and mine who brought him hither, has 
been so suddenly summoned for ever away. 
He is one whom many regret. Do you know 
Friedrich Riickert ? If you stand in any cor- 
respondence with him, I will bid you tell him 
that I got acquainted altogether unexpectedly 
with his " Hariri " last summer, and rejoiced 
over it for weeks as over a found jewel. 

* Considerable Orientalist and Sanscritist, born 1805 at 
Hanover, was called at the age of 22 to teach the Oriental Ian- 



274 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



Perhaps you sometimes write to Weimar ; 
if so, pray offer our peculiar regards, my wife's 
and mine, to Madame von Goethe. I sent Dr. 
Eckermann a packet and letter, six months 
ago, to which there is yet to answer. His 
Gesprdche * and your remarks on them were 
ri^ht welcome. 



II 

London : March lo, 1838. 

My dear Sir, — Some two months ago I 
wrote to you in grateful tho' late acknowledge- 
ment of your two volumes of Denkwiirdig- 
keiten, which work I had then read, as others 
here have since done, with great satisfaction. 

The bearer of this note is Mr. Woodhouse, 
a worthy English gentleman, proceeding to- 
wards Vienna ; desirous of knowing what is 
best in Germany and among the Germans. 
Permit me to recommend him to you. He is a 
stranger to Deiitschland as yet, but deserves to 
know it better. 

Perhaps if Dr. Mundt is still in Berlin, he 

guages at the London University, laid down his professorship for 
want of satisfaction at it, and died 1837 in London, before he 
could finish the principal work of his life, the edition of the Rig- 
veda. His early death caused general sympathy. 

* Vols. i. and ii. of the Gesprdche mit Goethe, by Eckermann, 
were published 1836. The essay Varnhagen has written there- 
upon is to be found in vol. vi. of his Denkwurdigkeiten und ver- 
mischte Schriften, 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



275 



could, for my sake, be of some furtherance in 
this matter. At all events, please to accept, 
thro' Mr. Woodhouse, my salutations and 
hearty assurances of continued regard. 
Believe me always, yours with true esteem, 
Thomas Carlyle. 



Ill 

Chelsea, London : Nov. 7, 1840. 

My dear Sir, — A fair traveller from your 
country, who has done us the honour and 
pleasure of a visit, reminds me that I ought to 
write, that I ought to have written long weeks 
ago. Weeks, or even months : for on looking 
at your last note I am shocked to discover 
that it must be almost half a year since it, and 
the new volume accompanied by it, arrived 
here ! Why I have shamefully delayed so long 
were now hard to say. Certainly it was not 
for want of thankfulness ; neither was it for 
the rather common reason, that I had not read 
the book and so knew not how to speak of it. 
The new volume of the Denkwiirdigkeiteji was 
eagerly read in the first days after its arrival 
here, and with a pleasure which is still vividly 
present to me. Alas, you are a sickly man 
like myself ; you know well enough, I doubt 
not, what Procrastination means ! One of our 
poets calls it the *' thief of time." After long 
months one is suddenly astonished, some day, 



2/6 



LETTERS EROM CARLYLE. 



to find how much of life, and of the best uses 
of life, it has stolen from us. 

The most striking piece in this fifth volume 
was, to me, the " Congress of Vienna." All 
was good, and very good ; but this best. At 
the risk of speaking things which, in a rapid 
hollow time like ours, were perhaps as well 
unspoken, I must express my real admiration 
(that is the word) of the talent, skill, and fac- 
ulty of many sorts displayed is such a compo- 
sition. That is what we call the art of writ- 
ing — the summary and outcome of many arts 
and gifts. The grand secret of it, I believe, is 
insight — just estimation and understanding, by 
head, and especially by heart. Give a man a 
narration to make, you take in brief the meas- 
ure of whatsoever worth is in the man. The 
thing done lies round him, with length, width, 
depth, a distracted chaos ; he models it into 
order, sequence, and visibility ; justly, with 
whatever force of intelligence is in him. So 
far could he see into the genesis, organisation, 
course and coherence of it ; so truly and far, 
no trulier and farther : it is the measure of his 
capability, of his Taugeiid, and even, if you 
like, of his Ttigend. I rejoice m.uch in such a 
style of delineation ; I prefer it to almost all 
uses which a man can make of the spiritual 
faculty entrusted him here below. Let us un- 
derstand the thing done : let us see it, and pre- 
serve true memory of it ; a man has under- 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



277 



standing given him, and a pen and ink, chiefly 
for that. In the name of the present and of 
future times, I bid you to continue to write us 
" Memoirs." 

Your proposed visit to London did not 
take effect last year. In another year perhaps 
you may execute it. You will find some per- 
sons here right well-affected towards you ; 
much to see and consider ; many things, I may 
suppose, which at first, and some which to the 
last, will afflict and offend you. We are near 
two millions in this city ; a whole continent of 
brick, overarched with our smoke-canopy 
which rains down sometimes as black snow ; 
and a tumult, velocity, and deafening torrent 
of motion, material and spiritual, such as the 
world, one may hope, never saw before. Pro- 
found sadness is usually one's first impression. 
After months, still more after years, the method 
there was in such madness begins a little to 
disclose itself. 

I read few German works at present ; know 
almost nothing of what you are doing. In- 
deed, except your own writings there turns up 
little which a lover of German literature, as I 
have understood the word in old years, would 
not as soon avoid as seek. In these days I 
have read a new volume of Heine's with a 
strange mixture of feelings. Hehie ilber Borne 
— it is to me the most portentous amalgam of 
sunbeams and brutal mud that I have met with 



278 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

for a long while. I remember the man Borne's 
book, in which he called Goethe the graue 
Staar that had shut into blindness the general 
eye of Germany. Heine seems to have given 
up railing at Goethe ; he, Heine himself, it 
seems, has now become a " Column of Luxor," 
aere perennius, and a god does not rail at gods. 
Eheti ! Eheu ! 

If you stand in any correspondence with 
Dr. Schlesier of Stuttgart, will you take occa- 
sion to signify, with many thanks on my part, 
that I have received his third volume of Gentz's 
Writings ; that I did make some attempt to get 
the book reviewedh.QYQ, but, having now no con- 
nection with that department of things, could 
not find a proper hand to undertake the busi- 
ness. Indeed, I apprehend Gentz has alto- 
gether passed here. I can remember him as a 
popular pamphleteer with a certain party in 
my early boyhood ; but the party has now dis- 
appeared, the ideas of it have disappeared ; 
and nobody will now recollect Gentz in the 
old light, or recognise him in a new. To 
myself I must confess he hitherto will by 
no means seem a hero. The only portion of 
his writings that I have read with any enter- 
tainment is that historical piece delineating the 
prologue to the Battle of Jena. What you 
somewhere say about him I can read ; hardly 
what any other says. A lady here, daughter of 
the late Sir James Mackintosh, remembers him 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



279 



at Vienna: "a man in powdered ceremonial 
hair, with a red nose," seemingly fond of din- 
ing ! Edidit monumentur/i I 

The fair Sophie kindly undertaking to 
carry any parcel, I send you a little pamphlet 
of mine published last year. Chartism, whether 
one hear the word or do not hear it, is the 
great fact of England at present. 

Did any one ever write an adequate life of 
your Frederick the Great ? Is there anywhere 
a legible life of Luther, so much as an attain- 
able edition of his Tischreden f I fear the an- 
swer is " No " in all these cases. 

Farewell, dear sir ; be, I do not say happy, 
but nobly busy, and think of us here as friends. 

Sophie promises to see us a second time 
to-morrow. I do not rightly know her name 
yet, but she has a right gemiithlich face, and 
laughing eyes of that beautiful German gray ! 
Believe me, yours ever truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

IV 

Chelsea, London : May 16, 1841. 

My dear Sir, — Some six weeks ago, while 
I was just running off into the country, your 
very welcome and most friendly letter reached 
me here. An ugly disorder, which they call 
Influenza, had altogether lamed me, in the cold 
weather of spring ; the doctors, and still more 
emphatically my own feelings, declared that I 



28o LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

could not shake the drug of it off except in 
the quiet of the fields. Always, after a certain 
length of time spent in this enormous never- 
resting Babel of a city, there rises in one not 
a wish only, but a kind of passion, for utter- 
most solitude : were it only some black, ever- 
desolate moor, where nature alone was pres- 
ent, and manufacture and noise, speech, witty 
or stupid, had never reached. I prolonged 
my excursion, which at first was only a visit 
to Yorkshire, into the South of Scotland, my 
native region, v/here brothers of mine, where 
an aged, good mother still live for me. I my- 
self, to all other persons, am now as good as a 
stranger there. It is a mournful, solemn, nay, 
almost preternatural place for me now, that 
birthland of mine ; sends me back from it 
silent, for there are no words to speak the 
thoughts and the unthinkable s it awakens ! Ar- 
riving here, ten days ago, your Berlin books, 
one of the most interesting gifts, lay all beauti- 
fully arranged on a table for me. I had heard 
of their safe arrival in my absence, and here 
they lay like a congratulation waiting my re- 
turn. 

You forbid me to speak oi this altogether ex- 
traordinary gift ; accordingly I shall say noth- 
ing of it, how much so ever I must naturally 
feel, except that, under penalty of my never 
asking you again about my book, you must not 
purchase for me any more than these ! No, that 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 28 1 

would never do ; for I shall want perhaps to 
ask about many books. I will put them on my 
shelves, having once read them thro* ; there let 
them stand as a peculiar thing, a memorial to 
me of man}^ things. All my da3^s I have 
laboured and lamented under a fatal lack of 
books; as indeed England generally and Lon- 
don itself would astonish you in that particu- 
lar ; think onty that in London, except it be the 
garbage of new novels and such like, there is 
no library whatever from which any man can 
borrow a book home with him. One library 
alone in our huge empire, that of the British 
Museum here, is open to the public, to read in 
it ; thereat first I went to attempt reading, but 
found that in a room with 500 people I could 
do no good as a reader. A German, a French- 
man, can hardly believe the existence of such 
a state of things ; but it is a lamentable fact. 
We are a strange people, we English: a peo- 
ple, as I sometimes say, with more //^articulate 
intelligence and less of articulate than any peo- 
ple the sun now shines on. Speak to one of us, 
speak to almost any one of us, you will stand 
struck silent at the contractedness, perhaps 
Cimmerian stupidity of the tuord he responds ; 
yet look at the action of the man, at the com- 
bined action of twenty-eight millions of such 
men. After years you begin to see through 
their outer dumbness how these things have 
been possible for them ; how they do verily 



282 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

stand ill closest continual communication with 
many a power of nature, clearest insight into 
that; how perhaps their very dumbness is a 
kind of force. On the whole, I grow to admire 
less and less your spcakijig peoples. The French 
are a speaking people, and persuade number of 
men that they are great; but coming to try 
veracious nature, the ocean for example, 
Canada, Algier or the like, nature answers, 
*' No, Messieurs, you are little ! " Russia again, 
is not that a great thing, still speechless ? From 
Petersburg to Kamtchatka the earth answers, 
" Yes, I love the English too, and all the Teu- 
tons, for their silence." We can speak, too, by 
a Shakespeare, by a Goethe, when the time 
comes. Some assiduous whisking *' dog of 
knowledge " seems to itself a far cleverer creat- 
ure than the great quiet elephant or noble 
horse ; but it is far mistaken ! 

However, this of the lamentable want of 
books in London (owing to that " outer stu- 
pidity " of the English) has now brought about 
some beginning of its own remedy. What I 
meant to say was, that the generous Varnhagen 
need not send me any more books, because any 
good book, German or other, has now become 
attainable here. Some two years ago, after 
sufficiently lamenting and even sometimes exe- 
crating such a state of matters, it struck me, 
Couldst not thou, even thou there, try to mend 
it ? The result, after much confused difficulty, 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



283 



is a democratic institution called " London 
Library," where all men, on payment of a small 
annual sum, can now borrow books ; a thing 
called here " Subscription Library," which in 
such a city as London, appetite growing by 
what it feeds on, may well become by-and-by 
one of the best libraries extant. We are demo- 
cratic, as I said, or rather we mean to be ; for 
as yet only the elect of the public could be in- 
terested in the scheme. Prince Albert, good 
youth, is patron, by his own free offer ; has 
given fifty pounds of money, and promises "a 
stock of German books." Varnhagen's are al- 
ready there. Faustum sit. 

You give an altogether melancholy account 
of your health ; in which, alas, I can too well 
sympathise ! It seems to me often the one 
misery in this world. But the supreme powers 
send it : we are to work under such condition ; 
we cannot alter that condition. Perhaps there 
is even much good in it : I often feel so. Your 
response to the poor pamphlet Chartism is that 
of a generous human heart, resonant to all 
human things, never so remote from it. We 
are struggling as thro' thick darkness, in this 
England of ours, towards light and deliverance 
as I do believe. Adieu, my dear Sir ; better 
health of body to you, and no worse healthy 
brotherliness of soul. 

With affectionate esteem, yours always, 

T. Carlyle. 



284 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



Chelsea, London: Dec. 19, 1842. 

My dear Sir, — For several months now I 
have been a great defaulter ; defrauding you 
of a most indispensable reply to a kind mes- 
sage, and myself of a great pleasure in impart- 
ing it ! How this has been, by what foolish 
combinations of sickliness, idleness, excessive 
work, you, who alas are yourself too often a 
sick man, will perhaps well enough understand. 
Suffice it now, better now than still later, very 
penitently and very thankfully to say that your 
most welcome gift, with the kind written re- 
membrance in it, arrived safe here, in due 
course ; that I have read the books, especially 
your own part of them, a good while ago, with 
agreeable results then and since, and that now, 
when you are home again (as I hope) refreshed 
and recruited by the bath waters and summer 
recreations, I knock again at your town door 
with a grateful salutation. 

Your Denkwiirdigkeiten are again, as ever, 
the delightfullest reading to me. Truly, I 
think, were I an absolute monarch I should 
decree among other things, that Varnhagen 
von Ense be encouraged, ordered and even 
compelled to write and ever to continue writ- 
ing Memoirs ! It is authentically my feeling. 
Always alas, as one grows older, one's appetite 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



285 



for books grows more fastidious ; there is now 
for me very little speculation and almost noth- 
ing- of the so-called Poetry that I can bear to 
read at all ; but a man with eyes, with a soul 
and heart, to tell me in candid clearness what 
he saw passing round him in this universe — is 
and remains for ever a welcome man. Specu- 
lations, poetries, what passes in this or the 
other poor human brain, — if it be not some 
most rare brain of a Goethe or the like : this 
is often a very small matter ; a matter one had 
rather not know. But what passes in God's 
universe ; this only is a thing one does wish 
to know, if one adequately could ! In truth, 
I have not for years read any writings that 
please me, solace and recreate me as these Denk- 
vjilrdegkeiten do. It is beautiful to see such 
a work so done. A Historical Picture of the 
living present time; all struck off with such 
light felicity, such harmonious clearness and 
composure ; such a deep, what I could call 
unconscious soul of Method lying under it : — 
the work of an Artist ! Well, I will thank you, 
and wish you long heart and strength to con- 
tinue, for my own sake and the world's ; for 
the sake of this Time, and perhaps still more 
of the Times that are coming. 

Your Russian Kartoptschin is a terrible 

fellow ; a man in the style of Michael Angelo ! 

One begins to understand how what I often call 

** dumb Russia " may be a kind of dumb Rome, 

19 



286 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 

one of the greatest phenomena on the Earth 
present, with such souls in it here and there. 
We have to thank you, at least I have, for 
showing us a glimpse of actual Russia face to 
face for the first time. By your help I got a 
real direct look at the wild Poet-soul, Pusch- 
kin ; and said to myself, Yes, there is a Rus- 
sian man of genius ; for the first time, I see 
something of the Russians ! We begin here, 
the better heads of us, to have a certain true 
respect for Russia with all its " Barbarism " 
real and imaginary ; to understand that though 
the Russians have all Journalists in the world 
against them, they have Nature, Nature's laws 
and God Almighty partly in their favour! 
They can drill wild savage peoples and tame 
waste continents, though they cannot v/rite 
Journalistic Articles. What a contrast with 
our French friends ! They can prove by the 
precisest logic before all men that they were, 
are, and probably wall always be in possession 
of the true light : Voila, this is the key to all 
arcana, this of ours. And then take a look at 
them in Algier and elsewhere ! 

My own studies and struggles, totally inef- 
fectual as yet, have lain principally for a long 
time back in the direction of Oliver Cromwell 
and our great Puritan Civil War, what I call 
the " Apotheosis of Protestantism." I do not 
count with any certainty that I shall ever 
get a book out of it : but in the meanwhile it 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



287 



leads to various results for me ; across all the 
portentous rubbish and pedantry of two cent- 
uries I have got a fair stout view, also, of the 
flaming sun-countenance of Cromwell, — and 
find it great and godlike enough, tho' entirely 
^/;mtterable to these days. Our Histories of 
him contemporary and subsequent are numer- 
ous ; all stupid, some of them almost infinitely 
stupid. The man remains imprisoned, as un- 
der Aetna Mountains of rubbish ; unutterable, 
I suppose, forever. But the meaning of this 
preamble was that I had an inquiry to make of 
you. Whether, namely, there exists in German 
any intelligent and intelligible Book about the 
military antiquities of Gustavus Adolphus's 
time? Much in our Cromwell's methods of 
fighting &c., remains obstinately obscure to 
me. I understand only that it was the German 
and Swedish method ; the chief officers of our 
Civil War, especially great multitudes of 
Scotch, had served in the Thirty- Years' War. 
Often have I reflected, in gazing into military 
puzzles of that period, '' Would that I had 
Varnhagen here, the soldier and thinker, to 
tell me v>^hat this means ! " 

I decide on asking, if there is any German 
Book, at least. But I fear there is none. We 
have a late Life of Wallenstein by a very intelli- 
gent Scotch Soldier, Colonel Mitchell, but 
Mitchell too says he cannot understand how 
they fought with their pikes and muskets or 



288 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

matchlocks ; in short, I find he knows no more 
of it than I do. 

There is a Life of Jean Paiil^ come to me 
from over the Atlantic ; by one Mrs. Lee, of 
Boston : an entertaining little book and curious 
as coming from the other hemisphere. I think 
of sending you a copy by some opportunity, 
if I can find one. Pray write to me by and 
by ; do not imitate my sluggishness ! 

Yours ever, with true regard, 

T. Carlyle. 

VI 

Chelsea, London: den 5. Febr. 1843. 

My dear Sir, — Many thanks again for your 
kind present of Books ; for your two kind 
letters, the latter of which arrived with 
Asehr's f book-parcel, duly, a few nights ago. 
The only unfriendly news you send is that of 
your own health, which I wish you had been 
able to make a little pleasanter to me ! Sum- 
mer weather at the baths, and no permission 
to enjoy it except thro' carriage windows, is 
very sad work. And you are still a prisoner 

* Life of Jean Paul Frederic Richter. Compiled from vari- 
ous sources. Together with his autobiography. Translated 
from the German. In two volumes. Boston, 1842. 

f The meritorious German bookseller, who since 1830, at 
Berlin, successfully laboured to further the book trade with the 
foreign countries, and has deserved well, especially of the great 
English libraries. He died 1883, on a journey, at Venice. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 289 

in Berlin, or nearly so ; — yet, thank heaven, 
not an idle one, not a discontented one : this 
too is something to be thankful for. We have 
to take the Light and the Dark as they alter- 
nate for us here below ; and try to make the 
right use of both. I say often of myself that 
if I had suffered no ill health, I should have 
known nothing. The stars shine out, as Fried- 
land's did, when it is grown rightly dark 
round us ! Yet I hope to hear, as the sum- 
mer advances, that you emerge again, and 
see good under the sun. Nay, so long as you 
can continue writing, with whatever pain it 
be, how many sons of Adam are there, who 
ought to pity you ; who are not rather called 
to envy you? I know not if I ever reported 
with what pleasure I read that little Delinea- 
tion of the Prussian Field-Marshal Schv/erin,* 
One has pleasure in it because it is a " Delinea- 
tion," which so many books only pretend to 
be : one sees a certain section of Human Life 
actually painted, rendered credible and con- 
ceivable to one. That last Battle is clear to 
me as if I had fought in it : there is a kind of 
gloomy dumb tragic strength in the Phenom- 
enon, as in some old Norse-Mythics, for me, 
— as if I looked into the old Death-Kingdoms, 
whereon Living Prussia, with what it can say 
and do, reposes and grows ! Those long ranks 

* Leben des Feldmarschall Graf en von Schwerin, von Varn' 
hagen was published in 1841. 



290 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



of speechless Men standing ranked there, with 
their three-cornered hats and stiff hair-queues 
and fighting apparatus ; dumb, standing Hke 
stone statues to be blasted in pieces with can- 
non-shot : — there are " inarticulate meanings '* 
without end in such a thing for me ! Surely I 
much approve your further biographic pro- 
jects ; and bid you ^' Frisch zu f '' How true 
also is that of Goethe in his advice to you : * 
I have felt it a hundred times ; — indeed it is 
properly the grand difficulty with my own 
poor Cromwell at present : that he lies buried 
so deep ; that his dialect, thought, aim, whole 
costume and environment are grown so obso- 
lete for men. What an English Puritan prop- 
erly meant and struggled for in the seven- 
teenth Century : I say to myself '' Is all that 
dead ? Or is it only asleep (not entirely with 
good consequences for us) ; a thing that can 
never die at all?" If it be dead, vv^e ought to 
leave it alone ! " Let the dead bury their dead " 
is as true in Literature as elsewhere. Hence 

* In the essay " Varnhagen von Ense's Biographien," in the 
sixth vokime of Ueber Kttnst und Altcrthum (1827). The words 
of Goethe Carlyle here refers to are the following : " We wish 
that he [Varnhagen] may proceed, with his biographical repre- 
sentations, more and more to the eighteenth century, and pro- 
mote, by delineating of the individualities and of the spirit of 
the time with which they stood in action and reaction, clearness 
of the whole state of things. Clearness necessitates insight, in- 
sight creates tolerance, tolerance alone is able to procure a peace 
active in all parts and talents." 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



291 



indeed so few Histories, and so many Pedantries 
and mere Sham Histories, — which if men were 
resolute enough, they would verily fling into 
the fire at once and make an end of ! 

Stuhr, as you predict, is heavy ; but I find 
him solid and earnest, I believe I shall find it 
well worth while to travel thro' him.* One's 
desire to know about the old days is so un- 
quenchable; the average of fulfilment to it 
grows at length so very low ! Stuhr is very 
far indeed above what I have to call " far " in 
late times. 

Some fortnight ago, I sent off the Life of 
Richter, by the channel you pointed out. There 
was not another copy readily procurable ; so I 
sent you the one we had ourselves been read- 
ing here. There was a Mitchell's Life of Wal- 
lensteiit added, which perhaps you ma}^ find 
partly interesting even in its very shortcom- 
ings. Mitchell is an honest man ; but his in- 
dignation against much inanit}^ that he has to 
witness here throws him into somewhat of a 
cramp antagonism now and then. He is dis- 
tinguished here by his deadly enmity to the 
bayonet, which he declares to be a total chi- 
mera in V7ar, — -false, damnable, heretical, almost 

* We conclude from the inquiry made in the preceding let- 
ter that, under the numerous works of the Prussian historian 
Peter Feddersen Stuhr, here is meant Die Brandenburgisch- 
Preussische Kriegsvcrfassung zttr Zeit Friedrich Wilhems des 
grossen Kurfiirsten (Berlin, i8ig). 



292 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



in the old ecclesiastic sense ! My stock of au- 
tographs which I have had much pleasure in 
gathering for you is of much more bulk than 
value ! Hardly a half dozen of men very in- 
teresting to you v/ill you find here ; the rest 
are transitory notabilities, — on many of whom 
as they are like to be entirely unknown out 
of their own Parish, I have had to mark 
some brief commentary in pencil. Pray use 
your Indiari rubber there, where you find need- 
ful : for it is of the nature of the speech to a 
trusted friend, not of litera scripta. Perhaps even 
thro' the Trivial, you with your clear eyes will 
get here and there a glimpse into our English 
Existence: the great advantage is, that you 
can and ought to burn some nine-tenths of the 
bundle so soon as you have looked it over. As 
occasion offers I will not forget to gather you 
a few more autographs : Byron, Fox, Pitt I do 
not yet give up ; indeed, the first of those, 
with some others, are already promised me. 

Your reading of the Austins is altogether 
correct. Mrs. iVustin cam^e first into vogue 
among us by translating Puckler Muskau (if 
that is the right spelling) and has risen ever 
since by her sunny hopeful vivacious charac- 
ter, and a good share of female tact and the 
like. Her husband, as you say, is truly pain- 
ful, — a kind of Prometheus Vinctus, bound uot 
by any Jupiter ! The man is faithful, vera- 
cious, energetically almost spasmodically labo- 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



293 



rious ; but of an egoism which has, alas, proved 
too strong, — which has made him unhealthy 
unhappy ; which, as I say, " has eaten holes in 
the case of it." Poor Austin, — a brave man 
too : but able to bring it no farther than hard 
isolated Pedant hood / Nay, as Sir Toby in 
Shakespeare has it, ** because thott, art virtuous, 
shall there be no more cakes and ale ? " 

I am very busy ; and hope to tell you about 
what (it is a poor Volume, perhaps preparatory 
to something farther) in a month or two. 
Adieu, my good Friend : better health to both 
of us ; unabated heart to both of us. 
Yours ever truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

VII 

Chelsea, London : May i, 1843. 

My dear Sir, — Almost a month ago your 
three beautiful volumes of Memoirs were safely 
delivered to me here, and in all ways cordially 
welcomed. I reckon it a healthy sign of your 
German Public, in spite of all its confusions, 
that it demands a new supply of such Writings : 
there is everywhere a great heart of truth liv- 
ing silent and latent amid the noise and tumult 
of world-wide Inanities literary and other ; this 
we shall always know, and quietly trust in this. 

Last week there was consigned to your 
Berlin-London Bookseller here a new volume 



294 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



of mine ^ with your address on it ; probably 
in a fortnight it may be looked for. I now, by 
the direct conveyance, write to announce it ; 
enclosing- a few more Autographs, which have 
come to me since your last packet. None of 
them is like to be of alm.ost any interest ; but 
they are gathered here without trouble, and I 
say always, you can at worst burn them. From 
time to time, when such an object turns upon 
my path, I will not fail to lift it ; to send it 
over sea, to the man of all living men who can 
extract most meaning out of it, for his own be- 
half and ours ! 

Since the finishing of that Book, I have 
been reposing myself with various iiiiaginary 
kinds of work ; — among others a daily spell at 
reading Danish, with a vievv^ to get acquainted 
with the old Norse world. Miiller's Sagabibli- 
othek, I had hoped, was in German; but, alas, 
it proves to be in Danish ; and I have to learn 
that nev/ dialect first which turns out to be an 
almost ridiculous mixture of Scotch, and brok- 
en Deutschy artfully disguised ; the v/hole brok- 
en down, seemingly so as to give the speech-organs 
a minimum of trouble ! I get into it without dif- 
ficulty ; but find MUller unluckily to be no per- 
fect oracle after all. Nials Saga in Icelandic 
is also here ; and the abstract of it in Miiller 
gives me great curiosity to penetrate into a 

* Past and Present, written and published 1843, 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



295 



sight of it, and of the strange old world it be- 
longs to. We are without due helps in Eng- 
lish for introducing ourselves to old Scandi- 
navia ; nor do I find hitherto in German any 
effectual notice of such. Do you know the 
magazine Bragicr; and what is the v/orth of it ? 
Has anybody written or translated, or in any 
way made accessible a solid word on that old 
province of things, in German speech ? Gey- 
er's Swedish History in its German dress is al- 
ready ordered from the bookseller: I have 
also read with attention the German Version 
of one Strinnholm a Swede on the Wiking- 
szilge, — it is something, not much. This ; and 
some nine or ten Books of travels in Iceland, 
from not one of which can I gain the smallest 
distinct insight even as to what specially the 
outward look of the Island is ! — If in your cir- 
cle, you happen to know any real Master in 
Scandinavian things, you could perhaps ques- 
tion him for me, on some convenient occasion : 
perhaps even a German Book-catalogue, if I 
knew v/hich, might instruct me in several 
things. 

There was one other matter, of the smallest 
possible weight, about which I have often for- 
gotten to ask you a small question. In the 
supplement to Creuzer's Symbolik, written I 
think by one Mone (which I found to be but a 
stupid book) there is account given of an an- 
cient German Body having been dug up from 



296 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



some morass, I think in the neighborhood of 
Paderborn, in which, or some such museum, 
says Mone, the Body yet lies ; due account of 
the business having been given in printed 
Transactions or the like, to which he refers. If 
I remember rightly the date is 18 17. But I 
have not Mone's book at hand ; and, as you 
see, the matter has got somewhat dim for me. 
The purport of my request is, that if there was 
any Pamphlet published about it, any Paper in 
some Society's Transactions, or other attain- 
able Article descriptive of this singular affair, 
you would indicate it to me. This poor old 
Cheruscan brother man, apparently some hor- 
rible miscreant, plunged down to be tanned in 
peat-bogs, and then to be dug up into daylight 
again after 2,000 years : this is a thing I shall 
never forget. This is almost all that I now re- 
member of Mone and his grey dreary book. 
In Dublin Museum, I believe, there is the anal- 
ogous figure of an antique nearly naked Celt, 
dug out of bogs, in like manner ; but this, from 
my account of it, seems much less notable than 
the Cheruscan. 

I ought earnestly to caution you against 
taking much or any trouble about all this, but I 
am afraid, that will be almost of no avail ! In 
verity, these matters are so unimportant to me, 
you can hardly take too little trouble with 
them ; and if I find, as is still to be dreaded, 
that you have taken too much, why then, in 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



297 



that case, I will not employ you again ! Actu- 
ally that shall be your punishment. 

To-day, however, in my haste, I must bid 
you Adieu, in hope of meeting again, on paper 
at least, before long. Poor Schelling ! I really 
fear you are right regarding him ! As for us, 
by God's help, Dringen wir vorzvdrts. 

Yours ever, T. Carlyle. 



VIII 

Chelsea : Dec. 4, 1843, 

My dear Sir, — Will you accept from me this 
new packet of mostly worthless Autographs, if 
perchance it may amuse you for an hour. The 
collecting of it, as opportunity spontaneously 
turned up, has been a real pleasure to me, not 
a trouble or employment in any*sense. We 
will keep the lion's mouth still open ; and when 
I find any contribution accumulated there, I 
will continue to send it you. 

Several of these autographs, I think, are 
duplicates : but you can burn the second or 
the first, which ever you find the more worth- 
less, and retain the other. The best part of 
them, as you will perceive, came to me from 
Mr. Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law, 
Editor of our chief Review,* a man of sound 
faculty and rather important position here, — 

* Qtiarterly Review. 



298 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

who has lately made acquaintance with your 
writings, and is glad to do any civility to 
such a man. 

It is now about three weeks since a new 
Gift of Books from you arrived safe, thro' the 
assiduous bookseller Nutt. Many thanks for 
your kindness, which never wearies ! They 
are beautiful volumes, the outside worthy of 
the interior, these of your own : they stand on 
my shelves, in a place of honour ; and, as I look 
at them or re-examine them, shall remind me 
of many things. Nyerup too seems an excel- 
lent work of its kind ; and shall be well read 
and useful to me one day. I wanted precisely 
such a lexicon, for those Norse Mythics. The 
business has had to postpone itself for the pres- 
ent ; but is by no means finally dismissed ; nay, 
it is likely to return, on occasion, for a long 
course of time. I often feel it to have been a 
great mistake this that we Moderns have made, 
in studying with such diligence for thousand 
of years mere Greek and Roman Pi'imordia^ 
and living in such profound dark inattention 
to our own. Odin seems to me as good a di- 
vinity as Zeus, the lomsburg is not a whit less 
heroic than any Siege of Troy ; — the Norse 
conceptions of this universe, the Norse oper- 
ations in this universe, were as well worth 
singing of, and elaborating, as some others ! 
But Greeks and Romans, I suppose, did not 
found Colleges for studying the Phcenician Ian- 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



299 



guages and antiquities ? In how many ways 
are we hidden as with night-mares, we poor 
Modern Men ! 

After long sorrows and confused hesitations, 
1 have at last sat down to Avrite some kind of 
book on Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil 
Wars and Commonwealth. It is the ungainliest 
enterprise I ever tried ; grows more and more 
bewildering, the closer I look into it: m.any 
times I have wished it had never come athwart 
me ; stolen already various years of ugly labor 
from me. But in many enterprises years of 
sore labor are to be sunk as under the founda- 
tions. I say and rappeal to myself : St. Peters- 
burg is a noble city ; and there had to perish 
170,000 men in draining the Newa bogs, before 
the building of it could begin ; under the first 
visible stone of Petersburg there lie 170,000 
lives of men ! Courage ! I must not forget to 
thank you for the good Stiihr : some gleams of 
military illumination I did get from him, which 
is more than I can say of several more pre- 
tentious personages. 

The Musca volitans * is not unknown to me ; 
I had, for some five years, and still occasion- 
ally have, a very pretty one, — which I call 
the " French Revolution," that book having 
brought it on me ! Ill health is a most galling 
addition to one's burdens. But here too we 

* Mouche volante, a disease of the eyes. 



300 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



must say, Courage, Courage ! You have long 
been a sufferer under this foul Fiend ; and you 
have wrenched some good hours from it too, 
and have some right brave work to show for 
yourself nevertheless. Festina lente that is the 
important rule. May I hear that you are bet- 
ter ; that you are again victorious and remem- 
ber me ! And so adieu, dear Friend, from 
Your affectionate, 

T. Carlyle. 

IX 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London : April 20, 1844. 

My dear Sir, — I am deeply in your debt, 
for books and most friendly messages ; I have 
had two parcels both of which have come safe, 
and been duly welcomed and enjoyed. The 
Marschal Keith pleases me greatly, reminds me 
of the Schwerin and other things I had before. 
We have now got the entire act * into our Lon- 
don Library, and even our young ladies are 
busy reading it. Of all this I should have sent 
you notification long ago ! Alas, I was wait- 
ing for some expected autographs ; I was wait- 
ing for this and that. At length enters a young 
American friend just about setting off to Ber- 
lin : By him I on the sudden send you off 
Bulwer's new book on Schiller, which has 
stood ready for you these several weeks ; this 

* The Biographischen Denkmale, 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



301 



with my love, and excuses, — my Letter shall 
follow, when the autographs please to arrive. 
Here are three, of no value. 

Get well in this beautiful weather ; let us 
all get well, and be busy, and good to one 
another ! 

In great haste, ever truly yours, 

T. Carlyle. 

The " three autographs " are not, at the 
moment, discoverable! 



X 

Chelsea: Febr. 16, 1845. 

My dear Sir,— I am delighted to hear from 
you again, to taste of your old friendliness and 
forgiveness again. I have behaved very ill, 
- — or rather seemed to behave, for the blame 
is not wholl}^ mine, as the penalty wholly is. 
These many months I have not, except upon 
the merest compulsion, written to any person. 
Not that I have been so busy as never to have 
a vacant hour, — alas, very far from that, often 
enough ; — but I have been, and am still, and 
still am like to be, sunk deep ; down in Chaos 
and the Death kingdom ; sick of body, sick of 
heart ; saddled with an enterprise which is too 
heavy for me. It is many long years now since 
I began the study of Oliver Cromwell, a prob- 
lem for all ingenuous Englishmen ; it is four or 



302 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



five long years since I as it were committed 
myself to the task of doing something with it : 
and now, on fair trial, it proves the likest to 
any impossible task of all I ever undertook. 
The books upon it would load some wagons, 
dull as torpor itself every book of them ; the 
pedantries, dilettantisms. Cants, misconcep- 
tions, platitudes and unimaginable confusions 
that prevail upon it, — drive one to despair ! I 
have read, and written and burnt ; I have sat 
often contemplative, looking out upon the mere 
Infinite of desolation. What to do 1 yet know 
not. I have Goethe's superstition about " not 
turning back ; " having put one's hand to the 
plough, it is not good to shrink away till one 
has driven the furrow thro' in some way or 
other ! Alas, the noble seventeenth Century, 
with a God shining thro' all fibres of it, by 
what art can it be presented to this poor Nine- 
teenth which has no God, which has not even 
quitted the bewildering pretention to have a 
God? These things hold me silent, for of 
them it is better not to speak ; and my poor 
life is buried under them at present. 

However, I suppose, we shall get into day- 
light again, sooner or later! After a good 
deal of consideration, I decided on gathering 
together all that I could yet find of Oliver's 
own writing or uttering ; his Letters and 
Speeches I now have in a mass, rendered for the 
first time legible to modern men : this, tho* it 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



303 



must be a very dull kind of reading to most or 
all, 1 have serious thoughts of handing out, 
since men now can read it ; — I would say, or in 
some politer way intimate, " There, you un- 
fortunate Canaille ; read them ! Judge whether 
that man was a * hypocrite,' a '■ charlatan,' and 
* liar,' whether he was not a Hero and god-in- 
spired man, and you a set of singering '■ Apes 
by the Dead Sea '." This you perceive will 
not be easy to say ! All these things, how- 
ever, plead my excuse with you, who know 
well enough what the like of them means in a 
man's existence; and so I stand absorbed in 
your thoughts, and am pitied by you, and ten- 
derly regarded as before ! 

Your beautiful little Books came safe to 
hand above a week ago. The reading of them 
is like landing on a sunny green island, out of 
waste endless Polar Seas, which my usual 
studies have resembled of late. I like Derf- 
fiinger very well ; and envy you the beautiful 
talent of getting across a wide dim wilderness 
so handsomely, delineating almost all that is 
visible in it as you go ! Your Elector of Bran- 
denburg, Derfflinger's Elector, was an acquaint- 
ance of my Oliver, too ; this is a new point of 
union. I had read Lippe * already; but grudged 
him not a second reading, neither is this per- 

* Graf Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst von Schaumburg-Lippe, Port- 
uguese Field-marshal, called Herder, 1771, to Buckeburg as 
counsellor of the consistory. 



304 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



haps the last. I have known the man always 
since Herder's Biography by his Widow ; and 
regarded him with real curiosity and interest. 
A most tough, original, unsubduable lean man ! 
Those scenes in the Portuguese War which 
stood all as a Picture in my head were full of 
admonition to me on this last occasion. I said 
to myself, ** See, there is a man with a still 
uglier enterprise than thine ; in the centre he 
too of infinite human stupidities ; see how he 
moulds them, controuls them, hurls them asun- 
der, stands like ^a piece of human Valour in 
the middle of them ; — see, and take shame to 
thyself ! " Many thanks to you for this new 
Gift. And weary not to go on working with 
great or with small encouragement in that true 
province of yours. A man with a pen in his 
hand, with the gift of articulate pictural utter- 
ance, surely he is well employed in painting 
and articulating worthy acts and men that by 
the nature of them were dumb. I on the whole 
define all Writing to mean even that, or else 
almost nothing. From Homer's Iliad down to 
the New-Testament Gospels, — to the Goethe s 
Poems (if we will look what the essence of them 
is), — all writing means Biography ; utterance in 
human words of Heroisms that are not fully 
utterable except in the speech of gods ! Go 
on, and prosper. Tho' all kinds of jargon cir- 
culate round the thing one does, and in these 
days no man as it were is worth listening to at 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



305 



all upon it ; yet the Silences know one's work 
very well, and do adopt what part of it is true^ 
and preserve that indestructible thro' eternal 
time ! Courage ! 

I have sent you here a few Autographs; 
they are w^orth almost nothing ; they came 
without trouble, and will testify at least of my 
goodwill. If I had any service useful for you, 
very gladly would I do it. 

You ask me what Books &c. you can again 
procure for me ? At present no Books ; but 
there is another thing perhaps, — tho' I know 
not certainly. The case is this. Booksellers 
are about republishing a miserable litttle Life 
of Schiller by me ; and want a J/^^^/ of Schiller 
which they could engrave from. A good like- 
ness ; an autograph in addition is hardly to be 
looked for. I have here a small cameo copied 
from Danecker's Bust, by much the finest 
Schiller's-face I have seen. But perhaps there 
is no such Medal? Do not mind it much, I 
pray you ! And so farewell and wish me 
well ! T. Carlyle. 

XI 

Chelsea, London : April 7, 1845. 

My dear Sir, — About a week ago I had 
your very kind letter with the Autograph of 
Schiller which latter I shall take care to return 
you so soon as it has served its purpose here. 



3o6 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

The Medallions, and the Portrait of Schiller 
will arrive in good time for their object ; we 
shall certainly be able to make out a likeness 
of Schiller from the combination, unless our 
part in it be mismanaged ; yours has been per- 
formed with all imaginable fidelity ! I could 
regret that you give yourself such a quantity 
of trouble to serve me ; really a far too liberal 
quantity of trouble ! — but I suppose you find a 
satisfaction in it ; so I must let you have your 
way. To-day is my extremity of haste, with Prin- 
ters chasing me, and paper litter of every de- 
scription lying round me in the most distracting 
way, I must restrict myself to the one little 
point of business which your letter indicates : 
that matter of the Behemoth, Your great 
Frederick is right in what he has written there, 
at least he is not wrong, — tho' I suspect he 
has but consulted Book Catalogues, or some 
secondhand Criticism, rather than the Work 
itself which he speaks of. Behemoth is the 
name of a very small book of Thomas Hobbes, 
Author of the Leviathan, as you have guessed : 
I think the big Lemathajz was published about 
1650 or shortly after; and this little Behemoth 
not till about 1670, tho' probably written long 
before. I had a copy of it, and read it twice 
some years ago ; but at this moment it has 
fallen aside, and I must speak from memory. 
It is properly a historical Essay on the late 
Civil War, which had driven Hobbes out of 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



307 



Eng-land ; it takes a most sceptical atheistic 
view of the whole Quarrel ; imputes it all to 
the fury of the Preaching Priests, whom and in- 
deed all Priests and babbling Religionist of 
every kind Hobbes thinks the Civil Power 
ought to have coerced into silence, or ordered 
to preach in a given style. In this manner, 
thinks he, the troubles had all been prevented ; 
similar troubles may again be prevented so. 
He speaks little about Cromwell ; rather seems 
to admire him, as a man who did coerce the 
Priests, tho' in a fashion of his own ; — this 
leads me to suspect that your king had never 
seen the actual book, but spoken of it from 
hearsay. It is a most rugged, distinct, forcible 
little Book, by a man of the Creed and Temper 
above indicated ; I remember it gave me the 
idea of a person who had looked with most 
penetrating tho' unbelieving eye upon the 
whole Affair, and had better pointed out the 
epochs and real cardinal points of this great 
quarrel than any other contemporary v^^hom I 
had met with. I know not whether this will 
suffice for Herr Preus's object and yours : but 
if you need more precise instruction, pray 
speak again ; it is very easy to be had to any 
extent. Nay I think it would not be difficult 
to pick from the Old-Book stalls a copy of the 
book itself : but indeed there is a new Edition 
of all Hobbes' works lately published, in which 
the Behemoth is duly included, — Sir William 



3o8 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

Moles worth's Edition of Hobbes ; which is 
probably in one of your Public Libraries by 
this time. 

I send you an Autograph of Thomas Bab- 
ington Macaulay, a conspicuous Politician, 
Edinburgh-Reviewer, Rhetorician, and what 
not, among us at present. The note is ad- 
dressed to me : * the subject is perhaps worth 
mentioning. An old foolish story circulates 
concerning Oliver Cromwell: how when the 
king, in 1647, was negotiating between the 
Army and the Parliament, he had promised to 
make Oliver an Earl and Knight of the Gar- 

* We are enabled to give the said letter of Macaulay to Car- 
lyle. 

Albany : March 31, 1845. 

Dear Sir, — I should be most happy to be of the smallest use 
to you. But I fear that Mr. Mackintosh's memory has misled 
him. He is under the impression that the famous saddle letter 
got into Sir Edward Harley's hands, and that Sir Edward Har- 
ley shewed it to Sir Harry Vane. This, he thought, was men- 
tioned in the extracts which Sir James Mackintosh made from 
the Welbeck papers. There certainly is among those extracts 
a concise account of Sir Edward Harley's life by one of his 
sons, but not a word touching the letter. In truth the story is 
incredible. For Sir Edward was a strong Presbyterian, bitterly 
hostile to the military Saints, and closely connected with Den- 
zil Hollis. If Cromwell had found such a letter, the last man 
to whom he would have given it would have been Harley ; and, 
if Harley had got hold of such a letter, the last man to whom 
he would have shown it would have been Vane. But I believe 
the whole story of the letter to be a mere romance. 

If you have the smallest curiosity to look over the Welbeck 
papers or any other part of Sir James Mackintosh's collection, I 
shall be truly glad to give you any help in my power. Mr. Mack- 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



309 



ter ; how Oliver did not entirely believe him ; 
got to understand that he was writing a letter 
to his Queen, which was to go off on a certain 
afternoon, sewed into the pannel of a saddle, 
by a Courier from an Inn in London : how Oli- 
ver thereupon, and his son-in-law, on that cer- 
tain afternoon, disguised themselves as troopers^ 
proceeded to the specified Inn, gave the Cou- 
rier a cup of liquor, slit open the saddle, found 
the Letter, and there read, — " Fear not, my 
Heart ; the garter I mean to give him is a 
hemp rope." Whereupon, etc. This story, 
of which we have Oil Pictures, Engravings, 
and a general ignorant believe current among 
us, I have for a long time seen to be mere 
Mythus ; and had swept it, with many other 
such, entirely out of my head. But now a 
benevolent gentleman writes to me that, for 
certain, I shall get evidence about it, in Sir 
James Mackintosh's papers, — sends me even a 

intosh, I have no doubt, would permit me to send you any vol- 
ume which you might have occasion to examine. I fear how- 
ever that you would find little relating to times earlier than the 
restoration. 

Believe me, my dear Sir, youi-s very truly, 

T. B. Macaulay. 

To the date of this letter Carlyle has written with pencil the 
following note ;— - 

" The Albany is a set of houses included within gates, within 
regulations, — and all let as lodgings to opulent Bachelors here. 
Old Indians^ official persons, and such like are to be found 
there." 



310 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



long- memoir on the subject. Macaulay has Sir 
James's Papers at present : I forward to Ma- 
caulay the long memoir; requesting- him to 
burn it, if, as I conclude, he has and can have 
no evidence to confirm the story. This is his 
answer. It is astonishing- what masses of dry 
and wet rubbish do lie in one's way towards 
the smallest particle of valuable truth on such 
matters ! I was in Oliver's native region two 
years ago ; and made sad reflections on the 
nature of what we call " immortal fame " in 
this world ! 

Peel is considered to have done a great feat 
in getting a Grant of Money (a much increased 
Grant) for the Catholic College of Maynooth 
in Ireland. I do not wonder your King is in 
a great hesitation about setting up Parliaments 
in Prussia. I would advise a wise man, in love 
with things, and not in love with empty talk 
about things, to come here and look first! 
Adieu, my dear Sir, — in haste to-day. 
Yours always truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

XII 

Chelsea : juin 8, 1845. 

My dear Sir, — I am still kept terribly busy 
without leisure at anj hour : but no haste can 
excuse my neglecting announce the safe. ar- 
rival of your bounties, which arrive in swift 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



311 



succession, and ought to be acknowledged in 
word as well as thought. 

The tiny Package of the Schiller Valuables 
had survived without damage the hazards of its 
long journey : it arrived here, after not much 
delay, several weeks ago, — just as the Printing 
of the Book was about completed : still in time. 
We admire much the new Portrait of Schiller. 
It was put at once into the hand of the Pub- 
lisher; who with all alacrity, set about engag- 
ing "the best Engraver," — whose name I do 
not know ; whose quality I much insisted on ; 
and whom, accordingly I suppose to be busy 
with the operation even now. Hitherto I have 
heard nothing farther ; my Publishers live far 
off in the heart of the City and its noises ; and 
all my locomotions at this period direct them- 
selves towards the opposite quarter. But of 
course I expect to see a Proof before they 
publish : if the Artist do his duty, it will not 
fail of welcome from all parties. I would 
thank you and the kind Madame von Kalb ^ 
for all your kindness : but you will not accept 
. even of thanks. I suppose this must be the real 
likeness of Schiller, in fact ; whosoever spreads 
this abroad, to the gradual extrusion of the 
others, is doing a good thing ! We have hung 

* Fraulein von Kalb, who was, since the death of her mother 
Charlotte von Stein, lady of honour at the court of Berlin. In 
her possession was the miniature whose reproduction ornates 
the second edition of Carlyle's Life of Friedrich Schiller, 



31^ 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



up the little Medallions on the wall, where they 
shall many times remind us of you. 

Your Life of Blucher came next; which 
shall solace my earliest leisure; — and which in 
the meanwhile does not lie idle, but gets itself 
read with acceptance in the house. I for- 
warded the copy to Mr. Lockhart : I had by 
chance seen him the night before. He is not, 
and has not been, so poorly in health as your 
news had reported : a man of sharp humours, 
of leasible nerves ; he complains somew^hat, 
but is recovering ; — a tough, elastic man. It 
is a strange element for a man, this town of 
ours ; and the voice of what is called " Litera- 
ture " in it gets more and more into the cate- 
gory oi Jargon if you be a little in earnest in 
this world ! Were there not something bet- 
ter meant than all that is said, it were a very 
poor affair indeed. " Verachtung, ja Nichtach- 
tung " : that really is the rule for it. 

My poor book on Cromwell will, if the Fates 
permit, get itself disengaged from the Abysses 
by and by. It is very torpid, after all that I 
can do for it; but it is authentic, indisputable; 
and earnest men may by patience spell out for 
themselves the lineaments of a very grand 
and now obsolete kind of man there ! What 
else is the use of writing ? To explain and 
encourage grand dumb acting, that is the 
whole use of speaking, and Singing, and Liter- 
aturing ! That or nearly so. Good be with 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



313 



you, my dear Sir. With many thanks and re- 
gards, Yours ever truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

XIII 

Chelsea: juin 13, 1S45. 

My dear Sir, — This morning the Bookseller 
called with a Proof of the " Engraving of 
Schiller," and with this Autograph which he 
has now done with. The Engraving seemed 
to be tolerably good, but you will have an op- 
portunity yourself of judging before long. As 
to the Autograph, knowing its value I am im- 
patient to get it returned ; and, on considering, 
fancy that an instant despatch by the Post 
may perhaps be the safest way : — however, I 
will consider that farther ; at all events, I now 
straightway seal it up with your address, that 
it may be ready for whatever conveyance, and 
in some sense off my hand. Our weather has 
grown hot as Sahara ; my press of confused 
business rolls along more bewildering than 
ever, — and has to transact itself in this tumult 
of tumults, as if a man should sit down to col- 
lect his scattered thoughts in the inside of a 
kettle-drum ! It will be over by and by. 

Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 

In great haste, — by a sure hand, the Herr 
Plattnauer. This Saturday, 28 juin, 1845. 

T. C. 



314 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



XIV 

Chelsea, London : August 19, 1845. 

My dear Sir, — Once more I am to trespass 
on your good nature for a little bit of service 
you can do me. A distinguished lady here, 
the lady Harriet Baring, has seen lately, in the 
house of some country friend, an Illustrated 
Life of Frederick the Great,'^ ]w.^t imported from 
Germany, a copy of which she is very desirous 
to possess. It is " in one stout volume 8vo, 
the woodcuts are beautiful " ; recently pub- 
lished ; where, by whom, or of whose author- 
ship I cannot tell ! This is somewhat like the 
Interpreting of Nebukadnezzar's Dream, the 
Dream itself not being given : however, I hope 
your sagacity will be able to divine what is 
meant. It is evidently some " Pracht-Buch " 
for Drawing room Tables: ''Leben Friedrichs mit 
Holzsclmitten " ; — the Woodcuts, moreover (or 
perhaps they were not wood-cuts at all) were '' in 
the manner of Ratsch." Does this define it 
for you ? Wood-cuts or not, they were inter- 
spersed among the Letterpress, — part of a page 
printed, part engraved. 

If you can find with certainty what Book 
it is, and get me a Copy well bound, and send 

* Evidently is meant Geschichte FHedrichs des Grossen. 
Geschrieben von Franz Kugler. Gezeichnet von Adolf Menzel. 
Leipzig, 1840. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



315 



it over by the Berlin and Fleet-Street Book- 
seller, I shall be really obliged. One might 
have it bound here; but the foreign binding 
will be more piquant. It should be done 
anmuthig yet with much modesty : we will 
trust to your taste for that. On the outside of 
one of the boards (of course not on the bacH) 
there should be legible, within a border, the 
letters " H. M. B." (which mean Harriet Mon- 
tague Baring) and " Addiscombe " (the place 
of residence). These are rather singular duties 
to impose upon you ! Nevertheless I will 
trust to your goodness for doing them even 
with pleasure. And pray observe farther : I 
cannot consent to the operation at all unless 
you leave the whole money part of it to be 
settled by myself with the bookseller here ; 
that is an absolute condition, a sine qua nojt. 

Another lady has employed me in another 
somewhat singular thing of the Book kind, — 
which also, when your hand is in, I may as 
well ask you to do. It is to send a copy of the 
established " Domestic - Cookery Book" of 
Germany ! We wish to see what the Germans 
live upon ; and perhaps to make incidental ex- 
periments of our own out of that. Any Gnd- 
dige Frau acquainted with her duties will direct 
you what the right Book is. It need not be 
bound ; it is for use : to get the right Book is 
the great point. I hope you w^ll so far ap- 
prove this International Tendency, and new 



3i6 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

virtuosity on the part of high persons here, as 
to lend due help in the matter ! '' Absolute 
condition," or sine qua non as in the former 
case. 

I sent by a private hand, some two months 
ago, a couple of Copies of Schiller s Life, with 
the Autograph you had kindly lent me. My 
Messenger reported that you were gone to 
the baths ; where I suppose you still are. I 
hope, well? 

In November you will get CromweWs Let- 
ters ; which I hope you will be able to read. 
I have had a really frightful business of it 
with that book, which grew in my hands into 
rather unexpected shape ; — which still detains 
me here, now that all the world has quitted 
London. Accept many salutations and kind 
wishes from 

Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 



XV 

Chelsea : Octr. 22, 1845. 

My dear Sir, — You have again, as you are 
on all occasions doing, deserved many thanks 
from me. The German Books, all right and 
fit according to the requisition, were an- 
nounced to me as safe arrived, three weeks 
ago, while I was in Scotland on a visit to my 
native place there. They were sent straight 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



317 



to the fair hands to whom they now belonged ; 
and due thanks, the real ownership of which 
was yours, were paid me by return of Post. 
The Friedrich der Grosse, I find, was perfectly 
correct ; not less so, I will hope, the Geist der 
Kochkmtst ! In fact you have very much 
obliged me by your goodness in this matter ; 
and now if the Bookseller v/ill send his ac- 
count, it will complete the favour; and this 
important little matter, m^ore important than 
some greater ones, will be v/ell and kindly 
finished. 

A few days after I w^rote last, there came 
to me, from Lewis, your Book on Hans von 
Held. Lewis had been unwell ; had hoped 
always to bring the Book, and never till then 
decided on sending it. For this Book also I 
will very heartily thank you. It is like a 
Steel Engraving ; has vividly printed on my 
mind the image of a Man and his Environ- 
ment ; and in its hard outlines, bound up by 
the rigours of History and Authenticity, one 
traces indications enough of internal harmo- 
ny and rhythm. As in the Tirynthian walls, 
built of dry stone, it is said you may trace the 
architectural tendencies that built a Parthenon 
and an Iliad, of other materials ! I found much 
to think of this life of Held : new curiosities 
awakened as to Prussian life ; new intimation 
that the soul of it as yet lay all dumb to us 
English, perhaps to the Prussians themselves. 



3i8 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

They begin to seem to me a great People : a 
kind of German-English, I sometimes call 
them ; great dumb Titans, — like the other 
Mecklenburger that have come to this side of 
the Channel so long since. 

In my Scotch reclusion I read Preuss's two 
Books on " Friedrich," * which you sent me a 
long time ago. The liveliest curiosity awoke 
in me to know more and ever more about that 
king. Certainly if there is a Hero for an Epic 
in these ages, — and why should there not in 
these ages as well as others, — then this is he ! 
But he remains still very dark to me ; and 
Preuss, tho' full of minute knowledge and 
seemingly very authentic, is not exactly my 
man for all purposes: In fact I could like 
to know much more about this king ; and if 
of your own knowledge, or with Herr Preuss' 
help, you could at any time send me a few 
names of likely Books on the subject, they 
would not be lost upon me. 

About the middle of next month the 
Cromwell, which is waiting for a portrait, and 
also for the return of London Population from 
the Country, is to make its appearance; and 
your Copy shall have the earliest conveyance 
I can find. You will of course try to read it ; 



* Friedrich der Grosse, eine Lebensgeschichte, Bd. 1-4 (Ber- 
lin, T 832-4), QXid Friedrich der Grosse ah Schrif tste Her {Btrlm, 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



319 



and if you can get across the rind of it, will 
find somewhat to interest you. Gliick und 
Segen always ! 

Yours most trul}^, T. Carlyle. 



XVI 

Chelsea: Novr. 13, 1845. 

My dear Sir, — Again accept many thanks 
for your kind letter, for your kind punctuality 
in sending me that little Note of Monies, which 
completes our small book-operation, and per- 
fects your service to me in regard to it. Here 
is Bookseller Nutt's receipt for the amount; 
and so we conclude with the Scotch wish on 
glad occasions, " May never worse be among 
us! " 

Your commission for the Schiller Portraits 
was very easily executed. I have made the 
Bookseller send you six, that you might have 
two still on hand, since four were already dis- 
posed of : they are put into a copy of the little 
book itself, and are to leave London, by Nutt's 
Parcel, on Tuesday next, four days hence. I 
hope they will come all right ; and be a mo- 
mentary pleasure to your friends and you. I 
have not been able to see them myself; but 
Chapman the Bookseller is a punctual man. 
About the beginning of December he will 
send you by the same conveyance, a copy of 
the Cromwell : a rather bungling Engraver is 



320 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



busy with a Portrait of the old Puritan Hero, 
— which I am somewhat afraid he will spoil. 
Our Artists are, for most part, properly Me- 
chanics ; and excel, if at all, only in that latter 
department ! 

We have Preusss big book in our library 
here, tho' not quite accessible at present. I 
design to consult it and others by and by. 
Archenholz'^ is an old friend of mine; the first 
book I ever read in German, — many years ago 
now ! — By the way, would you on some good 
occasion send me a complete list of all your 
writings? We have most of them here in 
our London Library, a favourite reading for 
all manner of intelligent men and women : but 
I think they are hardly all here, and we ought 
to have them all. Pray do not forget this. — I 
have lately been reading Biilow-Cammerow f 
on Prussia : a somewhat commonplace, long- 
winded, watery man : out of whom, however, 
I glean some glimpses of Prussian life, which 
are very strange to me. Almost the converse 
of ours ; full of struggle, full of energy and 
difficulty ; so like and so unlike ! 

* Geschichte des siebenjdhrigen Krieges^ von F. W. von 
Archenholz, published first in Berliner historishes Jahrbuch of 
1789. 

\ Preussen, seine Verfassung, seine Verwaliung sein Verhalt- 
niss zu Deutschland, von Ernst Gottfried Georg von Biilow- 
Cummerow. The book M'as pubHshed 1842, first gift of the 
liberty of censorship, afforded by cabinet's order of the 4 Octo- 
ber, 1842, to books above 320 pages. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



321 



Our wanderings here are not yet concluded. 
The day after to-morrow we go down to the 
Sea-Coast in Hampshire, for a week or two of 
winter sunshine, and the sight of kind friends, 
in a climate much superior to London at this 
season. One of our gracious Hosts is the Lady 
to whom that Friedrich Book of Prints you 
sent us has gone. — I should have told you long 
since that my Wife made friendship with Miss 
Wynne, of whom we hope to see more in time 
coming. 

And now for the present, Farewell. I will 
wish strength and good-speed ; courageous 
resistance to the Winter, and to all other ene- 
mies and obstacles, of which a man finds al- 
ways enough ! 

With true regard yours always, 

T. Carlyle. 

XVII 

Chelsea, London : Deer. 16, 1846. 

My dear Sir, — Yesterday there went from 
Mr. Nutt's shop, imbedded, I suppose, in a 
soft mass of English Literature, — a small box 
bearing your address ; which I hope may reach 
you safely, in time for a New-year's remem- 
brance of me. It is a model of the Tomb of 
Shakespeare, done by one ingenuous little artist 
here ; which may perhaps interest you or some 
of your friends, for a moment. I understand 



322 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 

the likeness in all respects to be nearly perfect, 
— which indeed is the sole merit of such a 
thing ; — a perfect copy of the old monument, 
as it stands within Stratford Church for these 
two centuries and more : — only with regard to 
that part of the Inscription, " Sweet friends, 
for Jesus' sake," etc. to these lines, which in 
the model have found room for themselves 
directly u7tder the Figure of Shakespeare, you 
are to understand that, in the original, they lay 
on the floor of the Church, some three feet in 
advance of the Figure ; in fact, covering the 
dust of the Poet; the Figure itself standing, 
at the head of the grave, against the wall. — 
And so enough of it ; and may the poor little 
Package arrive safe, and kindly bring me be- 
fore you again ! — 

I have been silent this long while, only 
hearing of you from third parties ; the more is 
the pity for me. In fact, I have not been well ; 
travelling, too, in Scotland, in Ireland ; much 
tumbled about by manifold confusions out- 
ward and inward ; and have, on the whole, 
been silent to all the world ; silent till clearer 
days should come. I have still no fixed work ; 
nothing in the dark chaos that it could seem 
beautiful to conquer and do; — no work to write 
at ; and as for reading, alas that has become, 
and is ever more becoming, a most sorry busi- 
ness for me ; and often enough I feel as if 
Caliph Omar, long ago, was pretty much in 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



323 



the right after all ; as if there might be worse 
feats than burning whole continents of rhe- 
torical, logical, historical, philosophical jangle, 
and insincere obsolete rubbish, out of one's 
way ; and leaving some living God's-message, 
real Koran or " Thing worth reading," in its 
stead ! These are my heterodoxies, my para- 
doxes of which too I try to know the limits. 
But in very deed I do expect from the region 
of Silence some salvation for myself and others ; 
not from the region of Speech, of written or 
Oral Babblement, unless that latter very much 
alter soon ! Cant has filled the whole uni- 
verse, — from Nadir up to Zenith, — God de- 
liver us ! 

Preuss's Friedrich has not yet reached 
hither, except thro* private channels ; but I 
mean to make an effort for sight of it by and 
by. I have the old CEuvres de Frederic beside 
me here ; but without chronology and perpet- 
ual commentary they are entirely illegible. — 
Zinzendorf * received long since, and read : 
thanks ! 

Yours ever truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

* Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Graf en von Zinzendorf in 
the 5tli volume of the Biographische Denkmale, 1830. 



324 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



XVIII 

Chelsea, London : March 3, 1847. 

My dear Sir, — Some ten days ago your 
new volume of Denkwurdigkeiteii was safely 
handed in to me ; I fancy it must have been 
delayed among the ices of the Elbe, for the 
note accompanying it bears date a good 
while back. Thanks for this new kindness : a 
valued Gift, to be counted with very many 
other which I now owe to you. — Some time be- 
fore, there had arrived your announcement 
that the little Tomb of Shakespeare had made its 
v/ay across the impediments and, v/hat was 
very welcome to me, that you meant to show 
it to Herr Tick. Surely, there is no man in 
all the v/orld that deserves better to see it! 
Will you say to him, if he knov/s my name at 
all, that I send him my affectionate respects 
and salutations ; that, for the last twenty years 
and m.ore, he has flourished always in my mind 
as a true noble '' Singing-Tree " in that Ger- 
man land of Phantasus and Poesisy that I, and 
very many here, still listen to him with the 
friendliest regards, with true love and rever- 
ence, and bid him live long as a veteran very 
precious to us. Your king did no act that got 
him more votes from the instructed part of 
this Community, than that of his recalling Tiek 
in the way he did, to a country where he was 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



325 



indeed unique, and which had good reason to 
be proud of him. 

I have read the new volume of Denkzvilrdig- 
keiten ; and am veritably called to thank you, 
not in my private capacity alone, but as a speak- 
er for the Public withal. If the Public thought 
as I do on such matters, — that is to say, if the 
Public were not more or less a blockhead — the 
Public would say to itself, " This is the kind of 
thing that before all others is good for me at 
present ! This, to give me an account of memo- 
rable actions and events, in more and more 
compact, intelligent, illuminative form, evolving 
for me more and more the real essence of said 
actions and events, — this is Literature, Art, 
Poetry, or what name you like to give it ; this 
is the real problem the writing -man has to 
solve for me, at present." Truly if I had com- 
mand over you, I should say, " Memoirs, and 
ever new Memoirs ! " There are no books 
that give me so lively an impression of mod- 
ern Facts as this of yours do. Withal I get a 
view as if into the very heart of Prussia thro' 
them ; which also is highly valuable to me. I 
can only bid yow persevere, give us what is pos- 
sible ; and must reflect with regret that one 
man's capabilities in such respect are limited 
and not unlimited. — Last week too I have read, 
with the liveliest interest, your book on Blil- 
cher, which I had not sufficiently studied before. 
A Capital Book ; a capital rough old Prussian 



326 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

Mastiff set forth to us there ! I seem to see 
old Bliicher face to face ; recognise his su- 
preme and indispensable worth in that vast 
heterogeneous Combination, — which also to 
him was indispensable; for in a common ele- 
ment, one sees, he might very easily have 
spent himself, as hundreds like him have done, 
to comparatively small purpose ; but that huge 
inert mass was always there to fall back upon, 
to be excited and ever anew excited, till it also 
had to kindle and flame along with him. 
" Kerle, Ihr sehet aits wie Sehweine! " and then 
these scenes, as at Katztadt, " Napoleon just 
behind me, say j^ou ? " or to the enthusiastic 
Public on the streets of Halberstadt, " So mogt 
Ihrdennalle — / " — I have laughed aloud at such 
naiveties, every time they have come into my 
mind since. Thanks again and again for paint- 
ing us such pictures, a real possession for all 
men. 

Probably you are aware there is a kind of 
translation going on for your Works, for our 
behoof, at present? One Murray, a principal 
Bookseller here, has decided on picking out 
two volumes from you, for a Series of Books 
(" Home and Colonial Library," or some such 
name) which he is going on with, in these years. 
The Translator is of the Austin Firm, which 
is partly known to you ; — respectable, he and 
his Enterprize, and to be welcomed in the 
meanwhile ; but I cannot but heartily wish he 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



1^7 



and his party had let the matter alone ; for 
precisely in those days I had in private set 
another young man, of much superior talent, 
upon the same adventure, and had got a book- 
seller too — when this announcement of the 
Murrays and Austins brought us to a sudden 
stop. Meanwhile, as I say, the thing is not to 
be regretted ; the thing is to be welcomed in 
its place and time ; wall do good in the mean- 
while, and prepare us by and by for better. 

Of my own affairs I can report no alteration 
hitherto. I remain contentedly idle ; shall 
doubtless feel a call to work again by and 
by, but wait tmbeschretblich ruhig (as Attila 
Schmelze* has it) for that questionable con- 
summation ! I am very serious in my ever- 
deepening regard for the " Silences " that are 
in our Existence, quite unheeded in these poor 
days ; and do, for myself, regard Book-writing 
in such a time as but a Pis-aller, With which 
nevertheless one must persevere ! Adieu, my 
dear Sir ; enliven me soon by another letter. 
Yours ever, 

T. Carlyle. 

* Des Feldpredigers Schmelze Reise nach Fldtz mit fortge hen- 
den Noten; nebst der Beichte des Teufels bei einem Staatsmanne, 
Von Jean Paul, i8og. The little book seems to have been much 
in favour in Carlyle's house, for also his wife alludes to it in a let- 
ter written from Liverpool the 23rd July, 1845. Above the date 
she writes : " First day in Flatz " (cf. Letters and Memorials of 
Jane Welsh Carlyle, vol. i. p. 310). 



328 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



XIX 

Chelsea, London : Nov, 5, 1847. 

My dear Sir, — It is a long time since I heard 
from you ; a long time since I wrote to you, — 
a still longer indeed ; so that, however I may 
regret, there is no room for complaining : it is 
my own blame ! Your last letter found me in 
Yorkshire ; wandering about the country, as I 
long continue to do, in the brightest Autumn 
weather ; I did not get the Schiller book * into 
actual possession till my return home, some 
little while ago ; when I found there had a 
second volume also arrived. Many kind thanks 
to you for such a Gift. For its own worth, 
and for sake of the Giver, it is right welcome 
to me. I finished the second volume last night ; 
my most interesting book for many months 
past : in great haste, I send you forthwith a 
word of hasty acknowledgement ; — in great 
eagerness for the Sequel too ! The book does 
not say who is Editor ; have not You yourself 
perhaps some hand in it? Whoever the Ed- 
itor may be, the whole world is bound to thank 
him. Never before did one see Schiller ; the 
authentic homely Prose Schiller, out of whom 
the Hero Schiller as seen in Poetry and on the 
Public Stage hitherto, had to fashion himself 

* ^chiW.Qx's Briefwechs el mit /Corner y whose first edition was 
then published. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



329 



and grow ! And truly, as you say, they are 
one and the same. For the veracity, and real 
unconscious manliness of this poor hungry 
Schiller of Prose, fighting his battle Avith the 
confusion of the world, are everywhere admi- 
rable. No cant in him, no weak sentimentalism ; 
he has recognised the rugged fact in all its 
contradictoriness ; looks round, with rapid 
eager eye, upon his various milk -cows of 
finance, " This one will yield me so much, that 
so much, and I shall get thro* after all ! " — and 
is climbing tov/ards the Ideal, all the while, by 
an impulse as if from the Gods. Throughout 
I recollected that Portrait you sent me ; with 
its big jaws, loose lips, hasty eager eyes, — all 
as in loose onset and advance, " Forward ! 
Forward ! " Poor Schiller, there is some- 
thing that one loves extremely in that ragged 
careless aspect of him ; true to the very heart : 
a veritable Brother and Man ! Korner too I 
hear universally recognised as a TOchtiger ; 
full of sense, of friendly candour and fidelity: 
it is rarely that one reads such a Correspond- 
ence between two modern men. Thanks to 
you all for giving it to us ; thanks to yoti indi- 
vidually for sending it me at once. 

I would fain send you some news of myself ; 
but alas, that is a very waste Chapter, not fit 
for entering upon, to-day ! I have no work 
on hand that can be named ; I feel only that 
the whole world of England, of Europe, 



330 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



grows daily full of new meanings, which it well 
beseems all persons of intelligence to try if 
they can read and speak. For the rest, I am 
very solitary; by choice and industry, keep 
solitary : the world here, especially the world 
of " Literature " so called, is not my world. 
In fact I begin very greatly to despise the 
thing they call " Literature," — and to envy the 
active ages that had none of it. A waste sea 
of vocables : what salvation is there in that ? 
Ranke's failure* does not surprise me: If I 
were a Prussian, even a German, I would 
decidedly try Friedrich. Adieu my dear Sir: 
be kind and write again soon. 

Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 

XX 

Chelsea: Deer. 2g, 1848. 

My dear Sir, — It is a long sad time since I 
have written to you, or could expect to hear 
any word directly from you : for indeed I have 
been, and still am, in an altogether inarticulate 
condition ; writing to nobody ; in the highest 
degree indisposed to writing or uttering of 
myself in any kind ! You do not doubt but 

* The Neun Biicher preussischer Geschichte^ which were 
published 1847 and which, at the time of their first appearance, 
underwent a most unfavourable critique by many parts. Cf. the 
disapproving judgment of Varnhagen in Brief e Vamhagens an 
eine Freundin, Hamburg, i860, p. 70 sq. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



331 



many kind thoughts and remembrances have 
crossed the sea to you, all this while : nor do 
we want evidence of the like on your part; 
nay, from Miss Wynn and otherwise, we have 
pretty accurately known how you were going 
on, and have generally had some image of you 
kept lurid and vivid in our circle here. For- 
give my silence — silence is not good altogether, 
when there are kind hearts that will listen and 
reply ! The advent of the New Year admon- 
ishes me that I should open my leaden lips, and 
speak 07ice more, — were it but as Odin's Proph- 
etess, from the belly of the Grave ! In the 
language of the season, I wish you a right 
brave New Year, and as many of them as your 
heart can still victoriously port in such a 
world. Courage ! En avant! I will start up 
too, some day, and march along with you 
again, I doubt not. 

Some weeks ago your little Pamphlet on 
the question of German Unity {Schlichte Redeti) 
came to me, a welcome little word, which I 
read with entire assent. This was your mes- 
sage hitherward ; and now, the other day, I 
despatched for you a little old Book of mine 
which they have been republishing here ; — a 
book of no moment ; which probably you 
already have received : let this be a small 
memento from me, when you look upon it. 
Whether I shall ever write another book in 
this world has often seemed uncertain to me 



332 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



of late ; but I believe I shall have to try it 
again before long, or else do worse ! 

What a year we have had since February 
last ! The universal breaking down of old 
rotten thrones, and bursting up of street-barri- 
cades ; enfuriated Sansculottism everywhere 
starting up, and glaring like a world-basilisk 
into the empty V/an-VVmi that pretended to be 
a god to it. " What art thou, accursed con- 
temptibility of a Wan-Wan? " — It is to me the 
most sordid, scandalous and dismal sight the 
world ever offered in my time ; and if there 
v^rere not in the dark womb of that " abomina- 
tion of desolation " a ray of eternal light for 
me, I should think (like poor Niebuhr) the uni- 
verse was going out, and pray for my own 
share, '^ From me hide it." But withal I dis- 
cern well, none more loyally. It is a sacred 
phenomenon, a fulfilment of the eternal proph- 
ecies, the beginning of a new birth of the 
world. A general " bankruptcy of Imposture " 
(so I define it) ; Imposture, long known by the 
wise for what it was, is now known and de- 
clared for such to the foolish at the market- 
cross, and admits openly that it is a bankrupt 
piece of scandalising and requests only time to 
gather up its rags, and walk away unhanged. 
How can I lament at this? Dismal, abomina- 
ble as the sight is, I cannot but intrinsically 
rejoice at it. And yet what a Future lies 
before us, for centuries to come, — if we 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



333 



had any thought within us, which very few 
have. 

The feeling here among considerate persons 
is, that Germany, in spite of all the explosions 
of nonsense we have seen, will certainly re- 
cover some balance ; and march like a brave 
country, — not towards Chaos, as some others 
seem to do ! We can understand that it is all 
the dirty^ the foul and mutinous folly that 
comes first to the top : but Germany deceives 
us all if there be not abundant silent heroic 
faculty in the heart of it ; — and indeed it is to 
England and Deutschland that the Problem 
seems to me now to have fallen : and a dread- 
ful Problem it is, — ?;zsoluble by the Southern 
genius, as we see, God assist us all ! 
I am ever your affectionate Friend, 

T. Carlyle, 

Goethe and the Frau von Stein : but that de- 
serves a chapter by itself ! I read yoiir copy. 
With pleasant wonder, which has not yet sub- 
sided into clear appreciation.^ 

* Goethes Briefe an Fran von Steift, herausgegeben von 
Adolf Scholl, 1848-51. In the same time Carlyle wrote about 
this book to his friend, often mentioned in these letters, Miss 
Carlotte Williams Wynn : — " I have read little yet — Gcethe is 
quite Wertherian — and the Frau von Stein, a consummate flirt, 
seems to have led an edifying life, — what did the poor Herr von 
Stein say to it?" " This is a coarse view," says Miss Wynn in 
her letter to Varnhagen, to whom she communicates it, " but so 
like Carlyle that I give it." 



334 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



[There is a '' Memorandum " joined to this 
letter, on a particular bit of paper :] 

My wife, for above a year past, is acquainted 
with your works done on paper by the scissors ; 
works that fill the female fingers with despair, 
— the female heart with desire to possess for 
itself a few specimens. Can you kindly think 
of this, some after-dinner ? — T. C. 



XXI 

Chelsea : Deer. 24, 1850. 

My dear Sir, — At the winter solstice, when 
Christmas Carols are about breaking out, and 
men are remembering old friends, I again 
write to you. For many months past, I have 
been too sickly and dispirited to write to any 
one ; indeed, of late, the burden of life falls so 
heavy on me, and things in this strange epoch 
are so intricate around and in me, I feel it kind 
of necessity to hold my peace, and contemplate 
the Inextricable without attempting to name it 
at all. I do confidently hope to reacquire the 
use of speech, and with it much human joy at 
present very much forborne : — in the mean- 
while I can say : old friends are only the more 
dear "and sacred to me that I have to look at 
them as if I were already in Hades, — as if they 
and I had no portion but in Eternity, and our 
speech to one another, for the present, were as 
that of Gods, a mute symbolical one ! Perhaps 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



335 



you understand all this, out of your own ex- 
perience too ; at any rate, I know you will for- 
give it, and look kindly on it as you do on all 
things. 

We regularly hear of you thro' Miss Wynne 
and otherwise ; we had Berlin visitors not long 
since, and looked direct upon faces that had 
lately looked on you. Many kind and pleasant 
messages have we had, and none that was not 
kind and pleasant, from Herrn Varnhagen ; for 
all which, accept gratitude if we have nothing 
better ! — The other evening Miss Wynne was 
with us ; and we hoped to have persuaded her 
again to-morrow ; but she decides to pass this 
Christmas day, the first after her Father's 
death, in solitude and silence. Which also we 
reckon to be good. — You v/ill be rejoiced to 
learn that, since this final consummation and 
winding up of her many toils and sorrows, her 
health appears decidedly to begin improving ; 
and friends look forward Avith assurance 
towards better days for this excellent and 
amiable person. Of Milnes,* Bolte,t etc. I say 
nothing ; for I suppose you hear of them much 
oftener than I do, at this season of the year. 

But let me state my special errand before 
my paper end. I have a favour to ask on this 
occasion ; and I know you will do in it for me 

* Monckton Milnes, afterwards (since 1863) Lord Houghton. 

f The lately (November 1891) deceased German authoress 

Amely Bolte, who, while she lived in London, frequented much 



336 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



what you can, — my only apprehension is that 
you put yourself about to do more. Beware of 
that latter extreme ; and hear in brief what the 
matter is. A certain Herr Neuberg '^ who has 
lived long in England, and has now revisited 
Germany (a VVurtemberger, I think), is resident 
at Bonn this winter ; and I think meditates 
some journey to Berlin soon. He is a man of 
unostentatious but truly superior character ; 
a most pious, clear, resolute, modest and 
earnest man ; with excellent insights and facul- 
ties ; well acquainted both with our literature 
and yours, and indeed knows England and 
English affairs better probably than any 
stranger you have met. This Neuberg, who 
was twenty years a merchant in this country, 
and then, finding himself possessed of a com- 
petence and totally without enthusiasm for 

Carlyle and his wife. Engaged by Carlyle to gather autographs 
for Varnhagen, she was in correspondence with this latter since 
1844, ^^^ has, after his death, published his letters to her in a 
book entitled Varnhagens Briefe an cine Freundi?t, Leipzig, 
i860. Carlyle devotes to her in a note to the Letters and 
Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle a. characteristic not altogether 
flattering : " This was a bustling, shifty little German governess, 
who, in a few years, managed to pick up some modicum of 
money here, and then retired with it to Dresden, wholly devot- 
ing herself to literature." More mildly judged his wife about 
her, in a letter written to him August 13, 1843 : " In the even- 
ing I had Miss Bolte till after tea . . . she is really a fine 
manly little creature, with a deal of excellent sense, and not 
without plenty of German enthusiasm, for all so humdrum as 
she looks." (Vol. i. p. 234 s^.) 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



337 



more, decided to give up business, and live 
henceforth among intellectual objects, — ap- 
pears to have produced some small volume for 
the Press (I think it consists mainly of transla- 
tions from me, upon the subject of Work) ; and 
this chiefly is his errand to Berlin at present. 
In which matter it is naturally clear to him of 
how much service you, whose works, qualities 
and position are well known to him as to every- 
one, might be ; wherefore he modestly insinu- 
ates, not a request, but a hint or wish that I 
would introduce him. Being a man whom I 
so much esteem, and who has really so much 
sense and practicality, and deserves so much 
esteem, there is no refusing him this favour : 
accordingly, either by post from Bonn, or more 
probably direct from hand in Berlin, you will 
likely soon receive a card of mine introducing 
Neuberg and his little errand ; whom I will 
only ask you to receive for my sake and to 
treat farther according as the circumstances 
seem to yourself to direct. His Manuscript, I 
believe, is of no great length, and will probably 
be very clearly written : if you pleased to run 
your eye over it, and give him any advice, he 

* Joseph Neuberg, bom 1806 at Wiirzburg (not a Wurtem- 
berger therefore, but a Bavarian), died 1867, friend of Carlyle, 
translated Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History, and 
the first four volumes of Fnedrich II. into German, and 
gathered out of his works Beitrdge zum Evangelium der Arbeit. 
Cf. about him the Deutsche Rundschau, 1884, vol. xli. p. 144 



338 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 

would be very grateful for it (as should I), and 
would receive it with a truly intelligent and 
modest mind. But, once more, let this "be, I 
entreat you, just as the case directs ; for neither 
N. nor I will be so unfair as to make an}^ re- 
quest about it, or entertain any expectation 
upon it. With regard to the man himself, I 
much mistake if you do not find him a rather 
pleasant incidental acquaintance, with conver- 
sation which will entertain you well on various 
subjects ; — and as such I will beg you to wel- 
come him ; leaving the rest to follow, or not 
to follow, as the lav/ of the phenomenon pre- 
scribes. 

And so adieu, my dear Sir ; with many 
wishes and regards, suitable at this season and 
at all seasons. I hope to write again, about 
many other more interesting matters ; I even 
hope to hear from you again. We are full 
of " Papal Aggression," " Crystal Palace,'* and 
other nonsense of which I say nothing just 
now. Yours ever truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

XXII 

Chelsea: Octr. 29, 1851. 

My dear Sir, — Mr. Neuberg intimates to 
me, the other night, that he is about returning 
to Germany, probably to Berlin among other 
places, and that he will take charge of any 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



339 



packet of " Autographs " or other small ware, 
which I may have to send you. By way of 
acknowledgement for your great kindness to 
Neuberg, if not for infinitely more solid rea- 
son, I ought to rouse myself, and constitute 
him my mesenger on this occasion! He is 
deeply sensible of your goodness to him ; and 
surely so am I, to whom it is not the first nor 
the hundred-and-first example of your dis- 
position in that respect. Many thanks I give 
you always, whether I express them in words 
or do not at all express them. This I believe 
you know ; and so we need not say more of 
it at present. 

There were other letters I had laid up for 
you ; w^hich seem, in some household earth- 
quake to have been destroyed, at least they 
are undiscoverable now when I search for 
them ; but by the present sample I think you 
will infer that they were not good for much, 
— hardly one or two by persons of any note or 
singularity, whom you are not already ac- 
quainted with, so far as handwriting can bring 
acquaintance : such were those now fallen 
aside, such are these now sent ; if they yield 
you a moment's amusement in your solitude, 
and kindly bring you in mind of a friendly 
hand far away, they will do all the function 
they are fit for. About a fortnight ago I 
despatched, without any letter enclosed, a 
volume I have been publishing lately, Biog- 



340 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



raphy of a deceased Friend of mine.* This 
also I hope you have got, or will soon get, 
and may derive a little pleasure from. It will 
give you a kind of glimpse into modern English 
life ; and may suggest reflexions and considera- 
tions which, to a humajt reader like yourself, 
are not without value. I wrote it last sum- 
mer when we were all in Babel uproar with 
the thing they called " Crystal Palace," — such 
a gathering of jubilant Windbeutelm from all 
the four corners of the world as was never let 
loose on our poor city before ! — in which sad 
circumstances all serious study was as good 
as impossible ; and, not to go quite out of pa- 
tience, one had to resolve on doing something 
that did not need study. Thank the gods, we 
are now rid of that loud delirium, of street- 
cabs, stump oratory, and general Hallelujah 
to the Prince of the Power of the Air,- — what 
I used to call the '' Wind-diisUry of all Nations ; " 
— and may the angry Fates never send the 
like of it again in my time ! 

In the end of July I ran off to tr}^ a month 
of Water Cure^ which has done me no ill, and 
not traceably very much good ; after which I 
went to my native region in Scotland, then to 
Lancashire etc. on my way homewards, nay was 
even a week in Paris ; f — and at last, for a 

* The Life of John Stirling (185 1). 

f Carlyle's journal of this journey is published lately (1891) 
in the New Review; "Excursion (futile enough) to Paris: 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



341 



month past, am safe at my own hearth again, 
beautifully silent in this deserted season of the 
Town-year; and on the whole am much more 
content with my lot than I have been in the 
past noisy months. Silence, solitude : I find 
this withal an indispensable requisite in life for 
every faithful man ; and have often thought of 
ancient oriental Ramadhan etc. with a real re- 
gret, and pity for the modern generation. No 
devout mortal but will long to be alone from 
time to time ; left utterly to himself and the 
dumb universe, that he may listen to the 
Eternal voices withal, that the whirhvinds of 
dusty terrestrial nonsense may from time to 
time precipitate themselves a little. 

What my next task is to be? That is the 
question ! If I were a brave Prussian, I believe I 
should forthwith attempt some Picture of Fried- 
rich the Great, the last real king that we have 
had in Europe, — a long Avay till the next, I fear — 
and nothing but sordid loud anarchy //// the 
next. But I am English, admonished towards 
England ; — and Friedrich, too, is sure enough 
to be known in time without aid of mine. — 
And so I remain in suspense ; have however 
got Preuss' big book, and decide to read that 
again very soon. I am much at a loss for maps 
and good topographies on that subject : if you 
could select me a very recommendable name 

Autumn 1851 : Thrown on paper, when galloping, from Satur- 
day to Tuesday, October 4-7." 



342 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 



or two, it might be of real help. We have 
huge map-dealers here, a wilderness of wares : 
and can get any Germ.an thing at once, if we 
will know which. Item, I have been reading 
again (for curiosity merely) about Catharine 
II.: — you who know Russian might guide me 
a little there too. Catharine is a most remark- 
able woman ; — and we are to remember that, 
if she had been a 7na7i (as Francis I., Henry 
IV., etc.), how much of the scandal attached 
to her name would at once fall away. Doubt- 
less you have read Kropomisky's Tagebuch : is 
it good for anything ? Are there no Histories 
but Castera's and Took's ? Any news on that 
subject would be welcome too, some time 
when you are benevolent to me. Adieu, my 
dear Sir, and do not forget me !■ — 

T. Carlyle. 

Vv^e have lost Miss Wynne's latitude and 
longitude in these her travels. If she comes 
to Berlin, remind her punctually of that fact. 
— Milnes, as you perhaps know, is at last 
wedded ; just returning from his marriage- 
jaunt : a very eligible wife he got. 

XXIII 

, Chelsea, London: June 6, 1852, 

My dear Sir, — Since you last heard of me 
I have been reading and inquiring not a little 
about Frederick the Great; and have often 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



343 



had it in view to write to you, but was always 
driven back by the vague state of my affairs 
in that quarter. For all is yet vague ; I may 
say chaotic, pathless ; — and on the whole, my 
studies (if they deserve that name) have hith- 
erto served less to afford me direct vision on 
the subject, than to shew what darkness still 
envelopes it for me. Books here are pretty 
abundant upon Frederick, for he has always 
been an object of interest to the English ; but 
on the whole not the right Books, — the right 
Books, materials and helps are not accessible 
here, and indeed do not exist here even if one 
could (which I cannot) sit in the British Mu- 
seum to read them. On the other hand, im- 
portation of books from German}^, I find, is 
untolerably tedious and uncertain : — in that, I 
have to admit that my real progress, in pro- 
portion to my labour, is quite mournfully 
small ; and after struggling with so many dull 
reporters, Preiiss (in all forms), Ranke, Frcddric 
(OEuvres de,' in two editions), Voltaire, Lloyd 
(Tempelhof* still unattainable), y^;;^2>2/, ^r^/2- 
enhoh, Retzow, not to speak of Zimmer7nanny 
Nicolai, Denina^ etc., " reporters " enough, — I 

* Lloyd's History of the Late War in Germany between the 
I'Cing of Prussia a?id the Empress of Germany and her Allies, 
containing " reflections on the general principles of war . . ." 
London, 1781-g, was published in a German translation 1783- 
1801 by Tempelhof, whose notes became the principal source for 
Archenholtz's History of the Seven Years^ War, 



344 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



find the thing reported of still hovering at an 
immeasurable distance, and only revealing it- 
self to me in fitful enigmatic glimpses, not 
quite identical with any of the "reports" I 
have heard ! — Add to which, I have no definite 
literary object of my own in viev/, to animate 
me in this inquiries ; nothing but a natural 
human curiosity, and love of the Heroic, in 
the absence of other livelier interests from 
my sphere of work at present : you may fig- 
ure I have not been a very victorious labourer 
for the last seven or eight months. 

Nevertheless, I decidedly grow in love for 
my Hero, and go on ; and can by no means 
decide to throw him up at this stage of the in- 
quiry. That I should ever write anj^thing on 
F^^ seems more and more unlikely ; but per- 
haps it would be good that my readmg upon 
him, which has been a kind of intermitting 
pursuit with me all my life, should now finish 
and complete itself at last. Accordingly friend 
Neuberg, I believe, has now another small 
cargo of Books on the road for me ; nay other 
wider schemes of inquiry are opening: one 
way or other, I suppose, I ought to play the 
game out. 

From Raymann's Kreiskarten, and Stieler's 
maps, joined to an invaluable old Busching'^ 
which has come to me, I get, or can get fair 

* Anton Friedrich Busching, the establisher of the poUtical- 
statistical method of geography. His principal work, Neue 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



345 



help towards all manner of topography : on the 
other hand, I greatly want some other kind of 
Book or Books which should give me with the 
due minuteness and due indubit ability a correct 
basis of Chronology ; in all former inquiries, I 
had some Contemporary set of Newspapers, 
Analyse du Moniteur^ Commons Journals^ private 
Diary or the like, to serve me in this respect ; 
but here I have yet found nothing, and do 
much want something, the result being always 
an indispensable one with me, and preliminary 
to all other results. Had faithful Preuss done 
the GEuvres de F"^ according to what I think 
the right plan, all would have been safe in this 
particular, in the hands of so exact a man : but 
unfortunately he has looked on F<='s works as 
literature (which they hardly are, or not at all 
are) and not as Autobiographic Documents of 
a World-Hero (which is their real character) ; 
and their tying up every little ounce-weight of 
different ware into a bundle of his own, — we 
have a most perverse regularity of method; the 
book, in spite of its painful unrememberable 
annotations, very often unintelligible to the 
earnest reader ; not to be read in any way ex- 
cept with all the volumes about you at once ; 
and yielding at last a result which is quite be- 
wildering, — not a living hero and the shadow 

Erdbesch^'eibung, of which he has written himself the first eleven 
volumes, — that is to say Europe and a part of Asia, in the years 
1754-92 — v/as continued after his death. 



346 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

of his history, but the disjecta membra of him 
and it. From these CEuvres, were they even 
completed, there will be no Chronology easily 
attainable. — If you know of any such book as 
would serve me in this particular, or can hear 
of any, I will beg you to let me know of it. 
Also (after all my Buschings and Reymanns) I 
should be very thankful for a little Topograph- 
ical Dictionary of Prussia, or even of Germany 
(if not too big) : Biisching's Indexes being hith- 
erto my only help in this respect. Character 
of place, sequence of time, Topography and 
Chronology, — these are the warp and woof of 
all historical intelligibility to me. 

Another book which I want still more, if 
there be such a book, is somQ Biographical'Dic- 
tionary, or were it even an authentic old Pee?-- 
age Book such as we have in England, — or even 
a distillation of old Army-lists and Court Cal- 
endar, — some Prussian Book, I mean, or gen- 
eral German Book, v/hich would tell me a little 
who these crowds of empty names are^ at least 
which of them is meant, when one hears them 
mentioned. This is a quite frightful want with 
me. There are such multitudes of different 
Schwerins ("of Schwerins," I somewhere 
heard), all of them unknown to me, so many 
Brandenburg -Schwedl Brunswic Bewerns, 
half-dozens of Dukes of Wurtemberg, etc. — it 
becomes like a Walpurgis-Nacht, where you 
can fix some of them into the condition of visual 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



347 



shadows at least! The very Margraves of 
Baireuth and Anspach are and continue mere 
echoes to me. — The Duchess of Saxe-Gotha 
too (F 's and Voltaire's), I have asked on all 
sides who or what she is and nobody can so 
much as show me the colour of a ribbon of 
her! Voltaire's 5,000 letters (100 times too 
many) I find as imperfectly edited as any ; in- 
deed they are three-parts utterly illegible al- 
ready, for want of editing, — and must end by 
being flung out, as portions of Chaos or the 
utterly Dark, for most part before very long, I 
apprehend. It was F^ alone that first sent me 
into that black element, or beyond the very 
shores of it ; and I confess I had no idea how 
dark and vacant it had grown. — If you can 
think of any guide or guides for me, in this 
important particular at once so essential and 
so completely unprovided for, surely it will be 
a great favour. Of course there are guides bet- 
ter or worse, to an inquiring stranger ; and 
the worst of them, if only authentic and intel- 
ligible, would be a kind of heaven to me in 
this enterprise. 

Did you see the Selection from Sir Andrew 
Mitchell's Correspondence, two thick volumes 
which appeared here some years ago ? Doubt- 
less they are in some of your Berlin libraries. 
The Editor, one Birret, is a man of some energy 
and talent; but said to be very vain and ill- 
natured ; and is, beyond doubt, profoundly ill-in- 



348 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

formed on the matter he has here undertaken. 
There is a letter, from a poor English soldier, 
acting as servant to Marshal Keith, which 
gives some poor glimpses of Keith in his last 
moments, and of the terrible mewing of Hoch- 
kirch: you must j^ee this poor Tebays letter 
(that is the name of him) for your second edi- 
tion of " Keith " ; if you have it not at hand, 
pray apply to me for a copy, which will be 
very easily got. It seems there are large 
masses of Mitchell Correspondence still un- 
printed in the British Museum, and various 
MSS. of Frederick included in them ; which, 
however, I believe, have been seen by Raumer 
and other Prussians. I read Mirabeau,"^ and 
still have him ; but except Maubillon's f vol- 
ume on the Prussian soldiers, I found the rest 
mainly a huge and to me quite questionable 
lecture on Free-trade a la Cobden ; — well worth 
its reading too, for Mirabeau is Mirabeau 
wherever one finds him. I have often pictured 
to myself the one interview of Vater Fritz and 
Gabriel Honore on the stage of this world ! 

But, on the whole, I must now tell you of 
a project that has risen here of a little tour to 

* Sur la monarchic prussienne sous Frederic le Grand {i']^']). 

f Mauvillon, v/ho collected the materials for Mirabeau's 
book, has written himself therein the chapter about the tactic of 
the Prussian infantry. Later he has made a German translation 
of the Monarchie prussienne^ whose printing was finished only- 
after his death (1794). 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



349 



Germany itself on our part ; of which the chief 
justification to me, — tho' the female mind with- 
al has other views in it, — would be to assist 
myself in the inquiries after Frederick. To 
look with my eyes upon Potsdam, Ruppin, 
Rheinsberg, Kiistrin, and the haunts of Fred- 
erick ; to see the Riesengebirge country and 
the actual fields of Frederick's ten or twelve 
grand battles : this would be a real and great 
gain to me. Hohenfriedberg, Soor, Leuthen, 
I could walk these scenes as truly notable ones 
on this Earth's surface ; footsteps of a most 
brilliant, valiant and invincible human soul 
which had gone before me thro' the countries 
and left indelible trace of himself there. Then 
at Berlin, one could see at least immensities of 
portraits^ Chodowieski Engravings, etc., which 
are quite wanting in this country ; as well as 
all manner of books to be read or to be col- 
lected and carried home for reading ; — not to 
mention oral inquiries and communications, or 
the very sight of friends who might otherwise 
remain always invisible to me ! In short, I 
think it not urilikely that we may actually 
come, my Wife and I, this very summer ; and 
try the business a little ; for there are Hom- 
burg or other watering places in the game too, 
and we really both of us need a little change 
of scene, after so many years of this Babel. 
The drawbacks are sad incapacity, especially 
on my part, for sleeping, for digesting, for 
23 



350 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



porting the conditions of travel, — which are 
sport to most people, and alas are death to poor 
us ! However, if the motive energy were suffi- 
ciently great? We can both of us speak, or could 
soon learn to speak, a kind of Deutsch-Kauder^ 
walsch, which might be intelligible to the quick- 
eared ; and for me, I have a certain readiness in 
bad French as well. Miss Wynne eagerly urges 
the attempt, on hygienic grounds; others urge, 
and in fact, there is a kind of stir in the matter, 
which may perhaps come to something. 

Will you, at any rate, be so kind as to de- 
scribe to me a little what you reckon the re- 
sources of Berlin in regard to my F° specula- 
tions might be. — Berlin, I conclude, must be 
the headquarter in regard to all that ; — and 
mention especially what the proper time, both 
in regard to climate and to the presence of in- 
structive persons, might be for visiting your 
city. People speak of Berlin heats, and sand, 
and blazing pavements, and again of Berlin 
sleets and frosts : a still more important point 
would be the possibility of lodging in some 
open-aired and above all, quiet place ; doubt- 
less all this is manageable, — with a maximum 
quidem, and also with a iniyiimitm. Till your 
answer comes, I will' stir no farther. 

Miss Wynne, home from Paris this good 
while, seems as well as ever, and quite beauti- 
ful again. We all salute Varnhagen. 

Yours always, T. Carlyle. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 351 



XXIV 

Dresden : Septr. 25, 1852. 

My dear Sir, — Here I actually am in Ger- 
many, and have been there three or four 
weeks ; in my great haste and confusion I 
despatch a line to announce that small fact to 
you, — and farther that I hope to be in Berlin 
itself (and to see you, if I am lucky) about 
Tuesday or at farthest Wednesday next. I 
have come up the Rhine from Rotterdam ; 
have been at Ems, Homburg, Frankfurt, Wei- 
mar, etc.: this afternoon we go towards Schan- 
dau, Lobositz; and after Lobositz, direct to 
Berlin, — I suppose by Zittau and Frankfurt 
a. O. 

My wife is not here ; she is safe at home, — 
where I wish I too were ! Neuberg alone 
accompanies me ; one of the friendliest and 
helpfuUest road-companions man ever had. I 
have of course seen many interesting things ; 
in fact I have prospered well in all respects, 
except that / can hardly get any sleep, in these 
noisy bedrooms, in these strange beds : in fact 
it is now four weeks since I had a night of 
sound sleep ; I am obliged to help myself along 
with broken sleep, in about half the natural 
quantity, — which circumstance necessarily 
modifies very much the objects I can hope 
to attempt with success in this journey of 



352 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

mine. To gather some old books (on the sub- 
ject of F^), to see Portraits and Places, this is 
nearly all I can aim at, as matters go. 

Berlin is to be my last station ; from Berlin 
I go home by the shortest route, and at the 
quickest rate of steam conveyance. I calcu- 
late on staying there perhaps a week ; longer 
if I c** get a lodging where sleep were possible ; 
but of that I fancy there is no hope ! I am 
habitually a bad sleeper; cannot do with 
noises, etc., at all : and the arrangements for 
sleep, in all German places where I have tried, 
are eminently unsuitable hitherto. — If you or 
any of your people could advise where a quiet 
bedroom was to be had in Berlin, that would 
be one of the valuablest favours ! At all events, 
leave a line for me " Berlin, Poste restante " ; 
that I may know at once whether you are in 
Town ; and where to find you. — And now for 
the Sachsische Schweiz, and other confused 
journeyings ! Yours always truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

XXV 

Chelsea: Janr. 15, 1854. 

My dear Sir, — Your '• Billow's Leben," * 
with the kind letter in it, has come safe to 
hand : many thanks for so welcome and friend- 

* Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Generals Graf en Billow 
von Donnewitz, Berlin, 1854. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



353 



ly a Gift, which so many others, a long list 
now, have preceded ! It lay waiting for me 
here, on my return from a short sad visit I 
had made to Scotland, whither I had been 
called in the mournfullest errand, — the death 
of my aged, dear and excellent Mother, whose 
departure I witnessed on Christmas day ; a 
scene which, as you can well believe, has filled 
me with emotions and reflexions ever since, 
and cannot for the rest of my life be forgotten. 
I have kept myself very silent, and as solitary 
as possible, ever since my return ; looking out 
more earnestly towards new labour (if that 
might but be possible for me), as the one con- 
solation in this and in all afflictions that can 
come. In the evenings of la,st week, three of 
them at least, I have read Billow, as an agree- 
able halting-place for my mind ; and was very 
sorry last night when it ended upon me, as all 
things have to^ do. 

You have given us a flowing Narration, in 
your old clear style ; painted out a stormy 
battling Life-Pilgrimage, with many interest- 
ing particulars in it. Biilow was not much 
other than a Name to me before ; but I possess 
him now on much closer terms : the man and 
the scene he worked in are very vividly 
brought out in this Book. Both in face and in 
character, I find him an intensely Prussian 
Physiognomy ; really very interesting to me, 
— with his strange old Swedenborgian Father, 



354 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

his wild Brothers, and all his peculiar environ- 
ments and personalities. Almost a type Prus- 
sian, as I said ; reminding me of much that I 
saw, and guessed, among your military people, 
while among you. — Was that Tauentrien a 
kinsman of Frederic's Governor of Breslau? 
A most ridiculous figure he makes in that pro- 
posed duel with Billow ! — 

I have gone thro' great quantities of the 
dreariest Prussian reading since I saw 3^ou ; 
but cannot boast to myself that Prussia or 
Vater Fritz becomes in the least clearer to me 
by the process. Human stupidity (with the 
pen, or with other implements in its hand) is 
extremely potent in this Universe ! How I 
am to quit this Fritz after so much lost labour, 
is not clear to me ; still less how I am ever to 
manage any Picture of him on those terms. 
Mirabeau, so far as I can see, is the only man 
of real genius, that has ever spoken of him ; and 
he only in that cursory and offhand way. In 
the end, I suppose I shall be reduced to Fritz's 
own letters and utterances, as my main re- 
source, if I persist in this questionable enter- 
prise. If I had been able to get any sleep in 
Germany, my own eyes might still have done 
a good deal for me ; but that also was not pos- 
sible : the elements were too strong for so thin 
a skin ; I was driven half-distracted after five 
or six weeks of that sort, — and to this hour the 
Street of the Linden, and with it all Berlin, is 



LETTERS EROM CARLYLE. 



355 



uncurably reversed to me ; and I cannot bring 
the North side out of a southern posture in my 
fancy, let me do what I will. I remember 
Lobositz, however ; I remember Kunersdorf 
too in a very impressive manner ; and wish I 
had gone to Reinsberg, to Prag, to Leuthen, etc. 

My wife had a pleasant Note from Miss 
Wynne at Rome the other day : Rome seems 
full of interest to the two fair Tourists, and 
they are doing well, — in the middle of a large 
colony of English visitants, if other interests 
should fail. It is a very welcome hope of ours, 
at all times, to see Miss Wynne settled within 
easy reach of us again. 

You must recommend me to Mademoiselle 
Solmar * very kindly, if you please : her kind 
politeness to me I often think of, with real re- 
gret that I was not in a condition to profit by 
it more: such goodness, coupled with such 
gracefulness, — what but five weeks of want of 
sleep could have rendered it of small use to a 
foreign wayfarer ! 

We are busy here, babbling about Turk 
wars, Palmerston resignation - reacceptances, 
Prince-Albert interferences, etc., — with very 
triiiing degree of wisdom, and to me with no 
interest whatever. London, England every- 
where are swelling higher and higher with 
golden wealth, and the opulences which fools 

* A friend of Varnhagen at Berlin, who died very old a few 
years ago. 



356 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



most prize ; — London in particular is stretch- 
ing itself out on every side, at a rate which to 
me is frightful and disgusting ; for we are al- 
ready two millions and more ; and our new 
populations are by no means the beautifullest 
of the human species, but rather the greediest 
and hungriest from all ends of the Earth that 
are flocking towards us. We must take our 
destiny. *' Unexampled prosperity," fools call 
it, — by no means I. 

Yours ever with thanks, 

T. Carlyle. 

Neuberg requested me lately to ask if you 
had got a copy of his Heldenverehrtcng, and to 
bid you demand one appointed, at Decker's,^ 
if not. — Adieu. 

XXVI 

Chelsea, London : Aug. 12, 1857. 

My dear Sir, — About ten days ago, there 
came to me a very pretty message from Berlin : 
a note from you in the incomparable hand so 
familiar to me of old, and a beautiful little 
book,f which entertained me greatly for several 

* The Geheime Ober-Hofbuchdrtickerei of Decker, who pub- 
lished the German translations of Carlyle's writings. 

f It is the book of Varnhagen's niece, Ludmilla Assing, en- 
titled : Grdfin Elisa von Ahlefeld, die Gattin Adolphs von Liit- 
zow, die Freundin Karl Immermanns. Nebst Briefen von Im- 
mermann, Moller und Henriette Paalzow. Berlin 1857. 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



357 



evenings after. I am truly glad to get a word 
from you, in assurance of the old disposition 
towards me, and marking that you are still 
well and active ; such things grow ever more 
precious as one grows more solitary in this 
world, — inexorable time more and more exer- 
cising his sad privilege upon us ! Do not for- 
get me ; nor will I you, — amid the wrecks that 
go on around us. 

The book is altogether delightful reading : 
I have sent it on, the instant it was finished 
here, to my Wife who has run into Scotland 
during the heats, and who I dare say is busy 
now upon it. Nothing can be more gracefully 
thrown off ; with perfect clearness too, so far 
as the circumstances permitted. It gives me 
curious glimpses into the latest chapter of 
your Berlin Histories, which was quite dark 
to me before. Immermann, etc., I had heard 
of ; but only as rumours of Names ; I never 
read anything of Immermann, — nor does this 
narration give me much appetite to him : he 
plays but a sorry figure here. On the whole, 
a tragic Female History throughout ; things 
all gone awry in that and other departments, 
and no immediate prospect of their coming 
right again ! But the Grdfinn herself is very 
beautiful, in her sorrows and otherwise ; a fine 
clear Being, — clear, sharp, as if she were made 
of steel. Perhaps there are other good books 
upon that Freischaar of Liitzow's, and the hu- 



358 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

man aspects of the Befreiungskrieg in Prussia ? 
They would be welcome to me, if they are at 
all like this present one, — had I gone into a lit- 
tle leisure again. The last letter in the book, 
about digging up the friend's body, and bring- 
ing it home to natal earth, — has a grim pathos, 
and silent Tapferkeit and Redlichkeit that goes 
into one's very heart. — Ask the fair authoress 
if she has not other books perhaps, of the like 
quality, lying in her heart ! You can assure 
her, with my respectful homages, that I find 
this one a book extremely well worth writing, 
and well worth reading. 

For months and years past I have been 
sunk as man seldom was, in the dismallest Sty- 
gian regions, struggling with this unblessed 
Task of mine, which I have often thought 
would kill me outright. You called it a ge- 
waltiges subject ; I have often bethought me of 
that term, — and that if I had been twenty 
years yotmger, it might have suited better ! but 
now, there is no help ; — struggle thro' to the 
farther side, or else drown : that is the condi- 
tion. — We are now at last fairly at Press; slow- 
ly printing, — I flying slowly ahead. In an- 
other twelvemonth (if all can hold out) there 
may be three volumes ready, — down to Deer. 
1745 ; — and the worst part of the job done. 
Taliter qualiter, dreadfully taliter indeed ! — At 
present I am in very great want of books, Mag- 
azines, Essays, or any real Elucidations by per- 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE, 3^0 

sons of veracity and insight, about the two Si- 
lesian wars (1740, 1744). Guerre de Bohhne, Es- 
pagnac (Marshal Saxe) and the terrible im- 
broglio called Helde7i- Staats-und Lebens-Ge- 
schichte, are almost my only resources hitherto. 
Miss Wynn, you doubtless know, is at 
Heidelberg. My Wife was sadly ill the whole 
of last winter ; and is still too weak. Milnes is 
looking towards Heidelberg too, he tells me. 
Weather is very hot ; News from India, etc. : 
good news in fact are scarce. 

Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle. 

xxvn 

Chelsea , Oct. 7, 1857. 

My dear Sir, — Many thanks for your two 
notes to me, — for your kind thought in regard 
to that matter of " Voltaire at Frankfurt." "^ I 
already had a copy of that excellent little tract, 
— fruit of your goodness to me at its first ap- 
pearance ; — and have again studied it over, 
more than once, since these investigations 
began. It lies bound up with other interest- 
ing pieces of a kindred sort ; ready for use 
when the time comes. But you are not to 
think this second copy wasted either ; the 
little pamphlet itself I have already turned to 

* Reprinted in vol. viii. of DenkwUrdigkeiten und ver- 
vtischte Schriften, von K. A. Varnhagen von Ense, after his 
death (1858), published by Lixdmilla Assing (1859). 



360 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

good account for my interests ; — and the fact of 
its being sent me on those terms has a value 
which I would not willingly part with. 

How often have I wished that I had you 
here "as a Dictionary" ! but there is nothing 
such attainable in these latitudes : — the truth 
is, I should have come to Berlin to write this 
book : but I did not candidly enough take 
measure of it, before starting, or admit to my- 
self, what I dimly felt, how ^^ gewaltig^' an 
affair it was sure to be ! In that case, I had 
probably never attempted it at all. Nobody 
can well like his own performance worse than 
I in this instance, but it must be finished taliter 
qiialiter. Nay, on the whole it needed to be 
done : the English are utterly, I may say dis- 
gracefully and stupidly dark about all Prus- 
sian and German things ; — and it did behove 
that some Englishman should plunge, perhaps 
on his mere English resources, into that black 
gulph, and tear up some kind of human foot- 
path that others might follow. — At any rate, I 
hope to get it done / and that will be reward 
enough for me, after the horrible imprison- 
ment I have had in it so long. 

The Edinburgh Review on Goethe I have 
not seen : somebody told me it was by Mrs. 
Austin, whom you may remember : " Hat 
nichts zu bedeuten," there or here. Nor Lord 
Brougham's speculations on the Great Fried- 
rich any more ; — the speculations of Lord 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



361 



Brougham's horse are as well worth attending 
to. And indeed are about as much attended to 
by the best kind of people here ! For I am 
happy to say, there is, sparingly discoverable, 
a class among us of a silent kind, much su- 
perior to that vocal one ; — and many a " Palm- 
erston," *' Crimean War," etc., as mirrored 
in the Newspapers and in the heads of these 
Stillen vn Lande would surprise you by the 
contrasts offered. What they call " Liberty of 
the press " is become a thing not beautiful to 
look at in this country, to those who have 
eyes! 

The Indian mutiny is an ominous rebuke. 
It seems probable they will get it beaten down 
again, but I observe those who know least 
about it, make lightest of it. What would 
Friedrich Wilhelm have said to such an 
''army" as that black one has been known for 
thirty years past to be ! — Miss Wynne has re- 
turned to us ; bright as ever. Adieu dear Sir, 
take care of yourself thro' the grim months. 
Yours ever truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

The little Ahlefeld book (tell Madame) is a 
great favourite here, as it deserves to be, with 
all who see it. 



LETTER 

OF THOMAS CARLYLE TO KARL 
EDUARD VEHSE 

{Born 1802, died 1870), 

AUTHOR OF " GESCHICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN HOFE SEIT DER 
REFORMATION," 48 VOLS., HAMB. 185I-58, " SHAKESPEARE 
ALS POLITIKER, PSYCHOLOG UND DICHTER," 2 VOLS., HAMB. 
185I, AND OTHER BOOKS. 

5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London: Octr. ii, 1853. 

My dear Sir, — Since I saw you last 3xar 
in Dresden, I have been reading a great many 
of 3^our books ; finding in them, as all the 
world does, abundant entertainment, and end- 
less matter for reflexion. It is very surprising 
to me how you have contrived to amass such 
a quantity of floating information on things 
seldom formally recorded ; and how correct it 
all is ; at least how correct our British part of 
it is, which I naturally take as a sample of the 
whole. You do often name your authorities, 
which is a great satisfaction to every careful 
reader; if you had in all cases done so, it 
would among other advantages have saved 
you the trouble of this Note, which I had 
long had it in view to venture upon writing 



LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 



363 



to you, containing the two following inqui- 
ries : — 

1. Can you tell me, in what book or books 
that account of George the First's Death is to 
be found, — with all the tragic particulars be- 
tween Velden and Osnabriick ; — and in general 
what is the chief book for the secret history of 
George the First ? In English I remember only 
Horace Walpole, and Coxe ; in German I have 
got the Herzogin von Ahlden^ which you often 
refer to, and Aurora von Konigsmark : but, I 
think, you must have had some better book 
than any of these. 

2. In one of your Histories, — I think that 
of the Prussian Hof^ but have unfortunately 
mislaid all reference to it, — you quote from the 
ambassador Mitchell a sentence which I never 
can forget ; to the effect : " If the English 
would give up talking (in their Parliaments 
etc.) and were led on by such a man (as Fried- 
rich the Great), what might they not accom- 
plish ! " These are not the words ; but that 
is the sense ; and I am extremely anxious, 
and shall indeed thank you much, if you can 
have the goodness to tell me where in Mitchell 
the passage is to be found. As was said, I can 
now find no reference to it in any of my Note- 
books ; I did not find it in our English book 
of the Mitchell Papers, nor is it in Raumer that 
I can see ; nor did I yesterday succeed in hunt- 
ing it up out of your own book on the Prussian 



364 LETTERS FROM CARLYLE. 

Court: at the same time I have the liveliest 
remembrance of reading it in one of your 
books ; so that, being really anxious to get 
hold of the thing, I am obliged to send my 
question to you in this vague shape (not quite 
so bad as Nebuchadnezar's dream, but too 
like that celebrated production of the human 
mind !) — and must appeal to your charity to 
summon out your own better remembrance, 
on my behalf. I think the words must cer- 
tainly be in the Preussische Hof^ or, failing 
that, there is only the Hannoverische to be 
looked to. Please discover for me, if you pos- 
sibly can. 

It is only this seco7id question that I am 
essentially concerned in; but if you can 
answer the first also, it will of course be wel- 
come, — tho' in that case, who knows if it will 
be the last I may ask of you in the progress 
of my reading ! 

Believe me, Dear Sir, sincerely yours, 

Thomas Carlyle. 



TRANSLATION OF 

SOME NOTES OF VARNHAGEN 

ABOUT CARLYLE'S FIRST VISIT TO 

BERLIN 1852. 

Carlyle 

Tieck told me he was greatly surprised, 
even astonished, at Carlyle when he visited 
him here. His appearance was wretched, not- 
withstanding his ruddy face ; his dress was 
extremely slovenly, and his behaviour boor- 
ish ; and it was evident that he was not un- 
conscious of these things, but that he gloried 
in them. Tieck mentioned Coleridge almost 
at the beginning of the conversation, when 
Carlyle broke out in immoderate laughter 
— a laughter which it could be perceived 
was forced, and was quite offensive. Tieck 
asked him with cool seriousness, '' Why do 
you laugh?" upon which Carlyle stopped, 
and said, with grave tone and mien, '' Oh, 
no ! " He knew well that to talk seriously 
about Coleridge would be, etc. Now it was 
still more the question why he laughed. But 
no answer was returned to it. Foolish vanity ! 

At his complaints of traveller's troubles and 
24 



366 NOTES OF VARNHAGEN, 

taverns, that there Avere no quiet rooms here, 
no curtained beds, that he had no books about 
Frederick the Great, which he wanted much, 
that he wished to see and hear nothing incom- 
patible w^ith the object of his journey, and at 
his distorted views of the importance of the 
great King, Tieck sympathetically shrugged 
his shoulders, and thought it would be better 
for Carlyle not to write about him.* Tieck 
spoke German with Carlyle. His English, he 
said, he had too nearly forgotten. 
(Signed) 

Varnhagen. 

Jan. 1854. 

Carlyle 

1852. 

In Berlin Carlyle dined with the banker 
Magnus, who had invited many distinguished 
guests on his account, among others Privy 

* So also thought the historian Heinrich Leo, who wrote on 
the loth of February, 1853, to Varnhagen : " Of Carlyle's Fred- 
erick II. I never expected much, although I have been charmed 
with other of his works, especially with the first part of his 
Past and Present, and with his Cromwell. His History of the 
French Revolutiott has also excellent, sublime pages, only too 
much of the magic lantern. But Englishmen, even Germanized 
Englishmen, have not a clear understanding of Prussians and 
Prussian magnificence — as Anglicised Germans (for example, 
Bu. [Bunsen]) are no better off. Carlyle's Frederick will, as I 
believe, be like a blind man's treatise on colors. Instead of 
Nature, artful floundering, as a matter of course. 



NOTES OF VARNHAGEN. 



367 



Councillor Wiese and like pious folk. The 
conversation turned upon Goethe, and after 
much had been said in his praise, and his great- 
ness had been admiringly acknowledged by 
all, Wiese could not restrain himself, and with 
devout air and gestures lamented that so great, 
so gifted a mind had not possessed the blessing 
of faith, and had not consecrated its strength 
to the glory of the Lord. Several joined 
heartily in this strain of attack. Carlyle be- 
came uneasy, and made a variety of unpleasant 
faces. At last he brought both arms down 
upon the table, and, leaning forward, began in 
his heavy, long-drawn way and his halting 
German, with a loud voice : " Gentlemen ! do 
none of you — then — know the old story — how 
a man reviled the sun — because he — couldn't 
light his cigar — at it?" The confounded 
guests were silent, and perceived with shame 
that they had been mistaken in this Englishman. 
(Signed) 

Varnhagen von Ense. 

This story was already known from Lewes's 
Life of Goethe. Lewes heard it in Berlin from 
an artist, whose name he does not give. 



LETTERS 

OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE TO 
AMELY BOLTE, 1843-1849. 



5, Cheyne Row : December 23, 1843. 

Unmenschliche ! — Are you become so in- 
oculated with the commercial spirit of this 
England, that you will no longer write to me 
but on the debtor-and-creditor principle ? Are 
I no longer to have any privileges — moi ? no 
longer to receive two or three or even four 
letters for one, in consideration of my worries 
and my indolence ? So you, at least, seem to 
have resolved ! But thank heaven there are 
still generous spirits among my correspond- 
ents who despise such balancing of accounts : 
who rain down letters on me "thick as 
autumnal leaves " without asking even whether 
I read them ! — And you think no shame of 
yourself, cold-blooded calculating little Ger- 
man that you are? — Well then, open your 
ledger and set down now in black and white : 
" Mademoiselle Bolte debtor to Mrs. Carlyle — 
in one letter to be paid immediately — no credit 
given.'' 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 369 

What are you doing and thinking-, and 
wishing, and hoping, — for in Devonshire I sup- 
pose people can still hope — even in December — 
here the thing is impossible. On the dark dis- 
mal fog which we open our eyes upon every 
morning, there is written as on the gate of the 
citta dolente, alias Hell : " Lasciate ogni speran- 
zavoi che entrate." And many things besides 
speranza have to be thrown overboard as well. 
To keep one's soul and body together seems to 
be quite as much as one is up to under the cir- 
cumstances. I attempt nothing more. As 
there is nothing which I so much detest as 
failure where I have willed, so I take precious 
care never to will anything as to which I have a 
presentiment of failing. My husband is more 
imprudent, he goes on stilHe/////;?^ to write this 
Life of Cromzvell under the most desperate ap- 
prehension that it will ^' never come to any- 
thing " — and as if people had the use of their 
faculties in all states of the atmosphere ! And 
so he does himself a deal of harm and nobody 
any good. He came into this room the other 
morning when I was sitting peaceably darn- 
ing his stockings, and laid a great bundle of 
papers on my fire, enough to have kindled the 
chimney, if it had not been, providentially, 
swept quite lately — the kindling of a chimney 
(as you in your German ignorance may per- 
haps not be aware) subjecting one here in Lon- 
don to the awful visitation of three fire-engines ! 



370 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 

besides a fine of five pounds ! I fancied it the 
contents of his waste-paper-basket that he was 
ridding himself of by this summar}^ process. 
But happening to look up at his face, I saw in 
its grim concentrated self-complacency the 
astounding truth, that it was all his labour 
since he returned from Scotland that had been 
there sent up the vent, in smoke ! '' He had 
discovered over night " he said " that he must 
take up the damnable thing on quite a new 
tact ! " Oh a very damnable thing indeed ! I 
tell you in secret, I begin to be seriously afraid 
that his Life of Cromwell is going to have the 
same strange fate as the child of a certain 
French marchioness that I once read of, which 
never could get itself born, tho' carried about 
in her for twenty years till she died ! A wit is 
said to have once asked this poor woman if 
" Madame was not thinking of swallowing a 
tutor for her son ? " So one might ask Car- 
lyle if he is not thinking of swallowing a pub- 
lisher for his book ? Onl}^ that he is too mis- 
erable poor fellov/ without the addition of 
being laughed at. In lamenting his slow 
progress, or rather non-progress he said to me 
one day with a naivete altogether touching, 
'' Well ! They may tzvaddle as they like about 
the miseries of a bad conscience : but I should 
like to know whether Judas Iscariot was more 
miserable than Thomas Carlyle who never did 
anything criminal, so far as he remembers ! " 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



371 



Ah my dear, this is all very amusing to write 
about, but to transact ? God help us well thro' 
it ! And, as the Kilmarnock preacher prayed, 
" give us all a good conceit of ourselves," for 
this is what is chiefly wanted here at present ! 
If my husband had half the conceit of himself 
which shines so conspicuous in some writers I 
could name, he would "take it aisj/'' and re- 
generate the world with rose-water (twaddle), 
as t/iej/ do, instead of ruining his digestive 
organs in the manufacture of oil of vitriol for 
that purpose ! 

Your little friend Miss Swan wick called 
here the other day looking ineffably sweet I 
almost too sweet for practical purposes ! " That 
minds me " (as my Helen says) I received by 
post a little while since a letter in a handwrit- 
ing not new to me, but I could not tell in the 
first minutes whose it was. I read the first 
words : ^' Oh those bright sweet eyes ! " I stop 
amazed, " as in presence of the Infinite ! " 
What man had gone out of his wits? In what 
year of grace was I ? What was it at all ? — I 
looked for a signature — there was none ! I 
turned to the beginning again and read a few 
words more : " There is no escaping their be- 
witching influence ! " '* Idiot ! " said I, " who- 
ever you be ! " having now got up a due 
matronly rage ! I read on however. " It is 
impossible that such eyes should be unaccom- 
panied with a benevolent heart ; could you not 



372 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



then intercede with the possessor of them to 
do me a kindness ? The time of young ladies is 
in general so uselessly employed that I should 
think you would really be benefitting — Miss 
Swanwick (!) in persuading her to — translate 
for me those French laws on pawnbroking ! " 
Now, the riddle was satisfactorily solved I 
The '-'■ bright swe'et eyes " were none of mine 
but Miss Swan wick's ; and the writer of the 
letter was Robertson who you may remember 
I told you raved about those same eyes — to a 
weariness ! My virtuous-married-woman-indig- 
nant blushes had been entirely thrown away ! 
It was too ridiculous ! But could you have 
conceived of such stupidity — even among 
authors — as this of beginning a letter to one 
woman with an apostrophe to the eyes of 
another ? 

My German friend has returned from Ger- 
many safe and sound, and brought me thence 
a highly curious gage d' amour, which is caus- 
ing a sort of general panic among my admir- 
ers. Old Sterling in particular is furious at it 
and likens it to the Devil's tail (where he saw 
the Devil's tail, whether at the Times newspa- 
per-office, or in what other unholy place, I did 
not like to ask). The thing is the most splen- 
did, most fantastical, altogether inconceivable 
— bell-rope ! Made for me by the hands of 
Plattnauer's countess-sister. A countless num- 
ber of little Chinese pagodas y of scarlet network 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



373 



festooned with white bugles, are threaded on a 
scarlet rope, ending in a " voluptuous'' scarlet tas. 
sel, which again splits itself away into six little 
bugle-tassels ! For three days and three nights 
I was in the dreadfullest perplexity what to 
do with it ! To ring up one's ojte maidservant 
with such a bell-rope would have been an act 
of inconsistency all too glaring ! besides I 
should have been always fearing when I pulled 
it that I should bring a shower of bugles about 
my ears! So I decided finally to give it a 
sine cur e-'^\2LCQ beside the drawing-room-door, 
where there is no bell- wire but only a brass- 
headed nail to suspend it from ! '' Don't you 
admire it there ? " I asked my husband after it 
was hung up. " Oh yes," said he, " certainly ! 
— as a splendid solecism ! as one admires a 
beautiful idiot! " 

But it strikes me that considering your de- 
merits, my dear, I am here v/riting you an ab- 
surdly long letter ! The fact is that I have 
not, I find, got quite rid of what somebody 
described as *' that damned thing called the 
milk of human kindness " — and I bethink me 
that on Christmas day you will be feeling sad 
more or less. When one is far from one's own 
land and own friends, those anniversaries, how- 
ever they may be cheered for one by present 
kindness, always bring the past and distant 
strangely and cruelly near and make one long as 
one dares not long every day to be as one has been ! 



374 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE, 



A word of encouragement and sympathy from 
a fellow-sufferer under these anniversary-feel- 
ings may be some little comfort to you, at all 
rates it is such comfort as I have to give, and 
if I had any better you should have it with a 
blessing — and so this is why I write just to- 
day ; because I mean that you should read 
my letter on Christmas. 

Give my kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. 
Buller and a kiss to Theresa, who I hope is 
striding thro' all departments of human knowl- 
edge in seven-leagued boots and carrying all the 
cardinal virtues along with her ! 

I send you a little thing for good luck to 
your new year. And so I commend you to 
Providence and your own sound little judg- 
ment, which is a very good deputy for Provi- 
dence on this earth, — and remain w^ith sincere 
good wishes very 

Kindly yours 

Jane Carlyle. 

Bay House: Wednesday (1845.) 

Ah my dear little friend ! I am so sorry for 
the disappointment that is awaiting you ! and 
yet, — should I like that you were not to leel 
some disappointment on finding me no longer 
there to welcome you back ? Certainly not. I 
shall have been here a fortnight on Saturday 
— how much longer we remain depends on 
others than me — for me I never can do long 



LETTERS FROM MRS, CARLYLE. 



375 



well in idleness — unless indeed in the idleness 
of Seaforth-House, which feels to be a sort of 
preparation for future exertion, a gathering of 
new strength from touching the bosom of 
Mother Earth. But at Seaforth-House (?) it 
is not so much idleness as indolence — and the 
difference is immense. The one is a repose 
for the faculties, the other a strenuous waste 
of them. — Mr. Charles Buller is here — no other 
visitor for the present besides ourselves. 

Lady Harriet is perfectly kind for me and 
I admire her more and more, but do not feel to 
be more intimate with her. I fear she is too 
grand ioT QYtr letting herself be loved — at least 
by an insignificancy like me. I could love her 
immensely if she looked to care for it. 

I have a very stupefying headache to-day 
and afraid of having to betake myself to bed, 
but 1 would in the first place send you this 
scrap that you might have some shadow of a 
welcome from me on your return. 

By and by I shall be back and then ! 
Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

5, Cheyne Row: (1848). 

My Dear, — Having constituted yourself a 
little Providence for your friends you must 
take the consequence of being applied to in 
all sorts of contingencies. But you are a rash 
slap-dash Providence and your interventions 



3/6 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



often miscarry thro' this over-zeal. So I pray 
you not only to come to my aid with your 
good intentions, but to do it with a certain prac- 
tical deliberation. My maid is going away 
and I must have another. The reasons for my 
parting with her need not be stated here — 
enough that she is to go — and I must again 
endure the horrors of a household-revolution, 
a hateful thought, just now, whilst I am still 
confined to the house, and good for so little 
in it. 

By communicating my want to the trades- 
people or by putting an advertisement in the 
newspapers I might have plenty of servants 
sent me to look at, — but such over-plenty ! and 
a chance whether 07ie would be found among 
them worth the trouble of investigating — and 
this year I have not poor Christie to receive 
the whole swarm and send me only such as 
seemed to have some feasibility for my pur- 
poses. 

Miss Wynne has a Welsh-woman out of a 
situation of whom she spoke to me some time 
since, in case of my hearing of a place for her ; 
but she does not think her adequate to my own 
service. Tho' she says so much good of her 
that I have her to let me at least judge of her 
with my own two eyes. 

It would be a kindness to me then if you 
would inquire among your acquaintance if 
what Mr. Duller calls " a treasure " be known 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



Z77 



to any of them. You should know by this 
time the sort of person I need — and such a one 
is more likely to be heard of among your poor- 
er acquaintance than the rich ones. A servant 
out of a fi7te house would not content herself in 
mine nor could I ever reconcile myself to the 
ways of such a one. 

If you hear of any, write to me and tell me 
her particulars before sending her here — for 
there is great awkwardness in refusing any 
one senty when one don't like her on examina- 
tion. 

There are Servants Homes and Places I be- 
lieve where one can have choice on pa3ang 
something. But I am not well enough to vent- 
ure out yet on such errands. My cough has 
been worse of late days and I have had mus- 
tard blisters on and been bothered consider- 
ably. 

Lady Harriet was here yesterday and met 
Miss Wynne at the parlour door. 1 never saw 
two such tall v/omen in my room together. 
Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

Epsom : Sunday, Febr. i8, 1849. 

My dear Amalie, — I am still here with no 
particular wish to return to London. Never- 
theless as we live in a conditional world with 
duties to do better and worse — and " forms of 
Society " to attend to, and above all a lot of 



378 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 

silverspoons to look after, it behoves me to go 
back to-morrow. Then the first business re- 
quiring my attention may have to be trans- 
acted with you yourself. I shall call for you to- 
morrow betwixt 2 and 3 p.m., when I hope it 
will not be inconvenient for you to receive me 
for a few minutes. Don't get into any appre- 
hensions that I am empowered to make any 
proposal to you of either legitimate or illegiti- 
mate nature, having no superfluity of lovers 
on hand at present, while people are so uni- 
versally occupied with politics. 

But times may mend for us women — one 
lives in hope. — Meanwhile it is an innocent lit- 
tle concern of a daily soreness I have to speak 
about. You having always plenty of that sort 
of things which it is a convenience to yourself 
as well as to others to dispose of. N.B. — 
Beauty to be dispensed with. 

Affectionately yours, 
Jane W. Carlyle. 

Friday, March (1849). 

You divined perfectly right, Dear, as to the 
intention part of it ; Lady A. was to *' take me 
with her to Addiscombe " and we were to 
have gone yesterday, to stay till Monday or 
Sunday, as I meant to have told you in time to 
spare you a vain journey on Sunday. 

But Lady A. felt too unwell yesterday for 
making a journey in such bitter cold — so put 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



379 



off till to-day, and to-day I have another note 
from her putting off into the vague. I am 
thankful ; tho' I should have stood to my en- 
gagement I was wishing greatly I had not 
made it — this weather taking all spirit of en- 
terprise out of me. 

Thanks for the offer of Music, but I found 
the only concert of that sort I ev^er tried dread- 
fully wearisome and besides a concert-room in 
this weather! Oh my dear! '^ Dinna speak 
o'it!" 

Yesterday on my way to Oxford Street in 
quest of warm stockings I called on your milli- 
ner—but saw nothing to excite my cupidity. 
Besides, the things seemed to me much about 
the usual shop-price ! 

Thanks for all your '* delicate attentions." 
I rather wish you had been " a man," for if 
anything could rouse a spirit in one it would 
surely be the getting oneself " eloped with " 
and I think you understand me better than any 
male lover ever did — hang them all ! 
Your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

(August 6, 1849). 

Thanks Dear. I send the address to Count- 
ess Pepoli by this post, and yours, — and she 
can communicate with you on the not-young 
lady herself — or await my return on Monday 
if she likes that best. 



38o 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 



As for Figgy — do not name that little viper 
to me again ! And if you wish to avoid seri- 
ous difficulties material as well as moral you 
will let her and her concerns alone. I find 
anj^body furious at what is considered j^our 
impertinent and ill-intentioned interference 
with her — for she herself makes herself a merit 
with the others of showing you up! She took 
the last I must say very ill-advised letter you 
wrote her to Captain Robinson and said, " See 
here what an impertinent and most improper 
letter Miss Bolte has written to me. I mean 
to write to her that she is to send me no more 
such letters and that my mind is quite made 
up to go to India " — and she writes to Hen- 
ning (he had all the letters here yesterday) 
that she is quite satisfied that going to India 
is best, etc., to buy a certain dog for her she 
had seen in the Park ; and to get her a new 
dress. Pray keep from mixing yourself fur- 
ther in the concerns of such a little traitor or 
it will be the worse for you. Lady A. is high- 
ly indignant at the unauthorized use made of 
her name. / also might be a little indignant 
at having mine used in inciting the wretch to 
open rebellion. But that you are the most in- 
discreet little woman in the world is no news 
to me ! I did not mean to have told 3^ou 
anything of all this till I could do it viva 
voce, but having to write at any rate I may 
as well put you on your guard, and advise 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 381 

you to give over meddling in what you can- 
not mend. Ever yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

All you say to Figgy out of mistaken com- 
passion is repeated to Henning and Capt. 
Robinson, etc., and you are made to look a sort 
of Demon lying in wait for her soul. So pray 
be quiet if you can. 

5, Cheyne Row : Aug. 14, 1849. 
My poor little woman ! — I can quite under- 
stand your intention " to scream " — I have the 
same feeling myself very often — a notion to 
scream for four and twenty hours without stop- 
ping ! — not over the treachery of one good for 
nothing Figgy but over the treachery of the 
species generally — and indeed over what Mr. 
Carlyle calls '■'■ the whole infernal caudle of 
things " ! What/ object to you is not so much 
what I call your indiscretion as a certain heed- 
lessness of judgement — thro' which you fly at 
helping everybody in every difficulty without 
having first satisfied yourself, that the difficulty 
is soluble^ or the person capable of having it solved 
— for you know the proverb '* one man may 
take a horse to the water but twenty cannot 
make it drink." And where one tries to lead 
a girl without truth or affection like Figgy by 
noble ways to noble aims, it is a labour which a 
little consideration of the laws of nature might 
25 



382 LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE, 

have spared one. All the trouble you take for 
an unhelpable person is so much out of the 
pocket of some other who could have been 
helped. But you have heard enough of Figgy 
for the present 1 should think — I shall merely 
add that I have taken upon me to send those 
letters of hers to Lady Ashburton (deserving 
to have them back) that she might see how lit- 
tle the correspondence was of your seeking — 
and how detestably the girl had behaved to 
you. Her guardians talked much of their de- 
termination to put an end to your " interfer- 
ence " with her. I said the girl had done that 
herself I should suppose, when she carried 
your letter to Capt. R. and declared she would 
" order you to write to her (!) no more in such 
a foolish strain " — that if you found her work 
interferely with after that you must be fit for 
Bedlam ! 

Capt. R. was going to v/rite to you they 
said — whoever writes to you and whatever 
they say : I advise you to hold you peace al- 
together — if permissible — if you must an- 
swer something to make your words as few 
and cold and impassible as you can. 

I did something after your energetic fashion 
last night ; Miss Heerman came to me at seven, 
to say she must decide about the other situa- 
tion to-day — I liked her appearance and man- 
ner very much and so did Mr. Carlyle. So 
rather than let her slip thro* their fingers, I 



LETTERS FROM MRS. CARLYLE. 383 

put on my things tired as I was with my jour- 
ney and walked off with her thro' the dark 
lanes to Countess Pepoli at Kensington. She 
v/as in a great quantum of indecision but prom- 
ised to settle the matter in the morning — and 
she did — at eleven she came here, having first 
been to Miss Heerman, to tell me she had en- 
gaged her. I hope it will answer on both sides. 
I wish Capt. S. had got her — he thinks his fat 
lump sadly ignorant. 

The habit-shirt is a great hit ! — the very 
sort of thing I have wanted for long — some- 
thing that would cover m}^ neck, which looks 
very bad at this date, and at the same time 
not give one the appearance of having a sore 
throat. Thank you heartily for your pains. 

My maid was so glad to have me back and 
had everything so clean ! A real jew^el she is ! 
For her too I have to thank you every day. /, 
you see, am one of the helpable, so you had bet- 
ter stick to helping me in my various needs. 
I will go to see you some morning, if the 
weather mend before Sunday. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 



THE END. 



T 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
^HE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OF 

EUROPE. The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of 
the Reigning Families. By " POLITIKOS." With many Por- 
traits. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" A remarkably able book. ... A great deal of the inner history of Europe is to be 
fuund in the work, and it is illustrated by admirable portraits." — The Athe/icetim. 

'• Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several sovereigns. . . . The anony- 
mous author seems to have sources of information that are not open to the fcieign 
c jrrespondents who generally try to convey the impression tliat they are on terms of 
intimacy with i-oyalty." — San Francisco Chronicle. 

"A most entertaining vol uine, which is evidently the -vvork of a singularly well-in- 
formed writer. The vivid descriptions of the home and court life of the various royalties 
convey exactly the knowledge of character and the means of a personal estimate which 
will be valued by intelligent readers." — Toronto Mail. 

" The anonymous author of these sketches of the reigning sovereigns of Europe 
appears to have gathered a good dealof curious information about their private lives, 
manners, and customs, and has certainly in several instances had access to unusual 
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cerned, far fuller and more intimate than can be found elsev^here." — I\l'ew York Tribunt. 

"... A boolc that v/ould give the truth, the v/hole truth, and nothing but the truth 
(so far as such comprehensive accuracy is possible), about these exalted personages, so 
often heard about but so seldom seen by ordinary mortals, was a desideratum, and this 
book seem? well fitted to satisfy the demand. The author is a well-known writer on 
qiiistions indicated by his psendonym."— Montreal Gazette. 

"A very handy book of reference. ' — Boston Transcript. 



M\ 



Y CANADIAN JO URNAL, i8'j2-'78. By Lady 

DUFFERIN, author of " Our Vice-Regal Life in India." Extracts 
from letters home written while Lord Dufferin was Governor- 
General of Canada, With Portrait, Map, and Illustrations from 
sketches by Lord Dufferin, i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

" A graphic and intensely interesting portraiture of out-door life in the Dominion, 
and will become, we are confident, one of the standard works on the Dominion. . . . 
It is a charming volume." — Boston Tra-veUer. 

" In every place and under every condition of circumstances the Marchioness shows 
herself to be a true lady, without reference to her title. Her book is most entertaining, 
and the abounding good-humor of every page must stir a sympathetic spirit in its read- 
ers." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

'I A very pleasantly written record of social functions in which the author was the 
leading figure ; and many distinguished persons, Americans as well as Canadians, pass 
across the gayly decorated stage. The authoi- is a careful observer, and Jots down her 
impressions of people and their ways with a frankness that is at once entertaining and 
2l'avx%\\\%." —'Book-B^iyer, 

"The many readers of Lady DufFerin's Journal of" Our Vice-Regal Life in India" 
will welcome this similar record from the same vivacious pen, although it concerns a 
period antecedent to the other, and takes one back many years. The book consists of 
extracts from letters written home by Lady Dufferin to her friends (her mother ehiefljr), 
while her husband was Governor -General of Canada; and describes her experiences in 
the same rhatty and charming style with which readers were before made familiar."— 
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. 



New York: D, APPLETON & CO,, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

T IFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. 
J-—^ By G. Maspero, late Director of Archaeology in Egypt, and 
Member of the Institute of France. Translated by Alice 
Morton. With i88 Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" A lucid sketch, at ones popular and learned, of daily life in Egypt in the time of 
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terests the xs^d&r."— London Tvnes. 

" Only a writer who had distinguished himself as a student of Egyptian and As- 
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modern book of travels in the East, but is an attempt to deal with ancient life as if one 
had been a contemporary with the people whose civilization and social usages are 
very largely restored." — Boston Herald. 

A most interesting and instructive book. Excellent and most impressive ideas, 
also, of the architecture of the two countries and of the other rude but powerful art of 
the Assyrians, are to be got from it." — Brooklyn Eagle. 

" The ancient artists are copied with the utmost fidelity, and verify the narrative so 
attractively presented."— C/««««fl// Times-Star. 

Y^HE THREE PROPHETS: Chinese Gordon; 
■*■ Mohammed-Ahmed ; Araby Pasha. Events before, during, 
and after the Bombardment of Alexandria. By Colonel 
Chaille-Long, ex-Chief of Staff to Gordon in Africa, ex- 
United States Consular Agent in Alexandria, etc., etc. With 
Portraits. i6mo. Paper, 50 cents. 
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" Throws an entirely new light upon the troubles which have so long agitated 
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7 HE MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRIN- 
CESS. By Emily Ruete, n^e Princess of Oman and Zanzi- 
bar. Translated from the German. i2mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 
The author of this amusing autobiography is half-sister to the late Sul- 
tan of Zanzibar, who some years ago married a German merchant and settled 
at Hamburg. 

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and manners and customs in the Orient, by one v/ho is to the manner born, the book is 
prolific in entertainment and edification." — Boston Gazette. 

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of the household from the time of risinguntil the time of retiring, giving the most com- 
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slave service, amusements, in fact everything connected with the daily and yearly 
routine of Yii&."—Utica {N. Y.) Herald. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



A NEW BOOK BY THE AUTHOR OF "UNCLE REMUS." 




O' 



W THE PLANTA- 
TION. By Joel Chandler 
Harris. With numerous Il- 
lustrations by E. W. Kemble. 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
The announcement of a new vol- 
ume by Joel Chandler Harris will be 
welcomed by the host of readers who 
have found unlimited entertainment 
in the chronicles of Uncle Remus, 
On the Plantation abounds in stir- 
ring incidents, and in it the author 
presents a graphic picture of certain 
phases of Southern life which have not 
appeared in his books before. There are also some new examples of 
the folk-lore of the negroes which became classic when presented to 
the public in the pages of Uncle Remus. 

This charming book has been elaborately illustrated by Mr. E. W. 
Kemble, whose thorough familiarity v.dth Southern types is well known 
to the reading public. The book is uniform with Uncle RejJtus, and 
contains in all twenty-three illustrations. 



BRER RABBIT PREACHES. 



Fro7n the Introductory Note. 

" Some of my friends who have read in serial fonn the chronicles 
that follow profess to find in them something more than an autobio- 
graphical touch. Be it so. It would indeed be difficult to invest the 
commonplace character and adventures of Joe Maxwell with the vitality 
that belongs to fiction. Nevertheless, the lad himself, and the events 
which are herein described, seem to have been bom of a dream. That 
which is fiction pure and simple in these pages bears to me the stamp 
of truth, and that which is true reads like a clumsy invention. In this 
matter it is not for me to prompt the reader. He must sift the fact from 
the fiction and label it to suit himself." 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

MODERN SCIENCE SERIES. 
Edited by Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F. R. S. 

The works to be comprised in the " Modern Science Series " are primarily not for 
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present state and result of scientific investigation, and who has neither time nor inclina- 
tion to become a specialist on the subject which arouses his interest. Each book will 
be complete in itself, and, while thoroughly scientific in treatment, its subject will, as 
far as possible, be presented in language divested of needless technicalities. Illustra- 
tions will be given wherever needed by the text. The following are the volumes thus 
far issued. Others are in preparation. 



T 



'HE CAUSE OF AN ICE AGE. By Sir Robert 
Ball, LL. D., F. R. S., Royal Astronomer of Ireland, author of 
"Starland." i2mo Cloth, $i.oo. 

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delphia Pjiblic Ledger. 

"An exceedingly bright and interesting discussion of some of the marvelous phys- 
ical revolutions of which our earth has been the scene. Of the various ages traced and 
located by scientists, none is more interesting or can be more so than the Ice age; and 
never have its phenomena been more clearly and graphically described, or its causes 
more definitely located, than in this thrillingly interesting volume." — Boston Traveller. 



T 



'HE HORSE: A Study in Natural History. By 
William H. Flower, C. B., Director in the British Natural 
History Museum. With 27 Illustrations. l2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

" The author admits that there are 3,800 separate treatises on tha horse already pub- 
lished, but he thinks that he can add something to the amount of useful information 
now before the public.and that something not heretofore written will be found in this 
book. The volume gives a large amount of information, both scientific and practical, 
on the noble animal of which it treats." — New York Commercial Advertiser. 

" A study in natural history that every one who has anything to do with the most 
useful of animals should possess. The whole anatomy is very fully described and illus- 
trated. ' ' — Philadelphia Bulletin. 



T 



^HE OAK: A Study in Botany. By K. Marshall 
Ward, F. R. S. With 53 Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

" An excellent volume for young persons with a taste for scientific studies, becatise 
it will lead them from the contemplation of superficial appearances and those generalities 
which are so misleading to the immature mind, to a consideration of the methods of 
systematic investigation." — Boston Beacon. 

" From the acorn to the timber which has figured so gloriously in English ships 
and houses, the tree is fully described, and all its living and preserved beauties ard 
virtues, in nature and in construction, are recounted and pictured." — Brooklyn Eagle. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 457 739 5 



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